Harry Potter and the New Revelation
by Kelbacca
Summary: Major GoF spoilers . . . yadda, yadda, yadda . . . Harry/Hermione . . . read and REVIEW (please) the gang's in their 5th year . . . yadda, yadda, yadda. . . ect. now read, please??
1. Another Journey From Platform 9 3/4

Harry Potter and the New Revelation  
Ch. 1  
Another Journey From Platform 93/4   
  
Author's Note: I removed it because I wanted to update it . . . so I did. Here it is. :o) Hey! This is my first fan fic, so please be kind! Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated, though. Warning: MAJOR book four spoilers. If you haven't read the GoF, don't go any farther - unless you want to spoil it for yourself. I repeat: DON'T READ IF YOU HAVEN'T READ BOOK FOUR!!! Anyway, please r/r. Enjoy! (Oh, and for all you Hermione/Ron people out there, please don't flame me!!)  
  
Disclaimer:Just about everything in this fic belongs to J.K. Rowling, with the exception of a few characters that I made up, so please don't sue me!!  
  
  
Oi, Harry, hurry up!" called Ron Weasley, waving his freckled arms wildly out of the train car's tiny window.  
  
Hermione Granger stuck her head out of the window next to Ron's and yelled as her thick, curly brown hair flew in the breeze, "Harry, it's gonna leave any second! Come on!"  
  
Tweeeeet! The Hogwarts Express blew it's whistle loudly, as if chiding Harry for not hurrying to board it.  
  
"I'm coming; just a second!" yelled back fifteen-year-old Harry Potter.  
  
All around him, people hurried back and forth; some running to get on the train, others saying good-bye one last time to their sons, daughters, brothers, and sisters before the students once again boarded the train bound for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
  
Harry turned to the tall, dark man standing next to him.  
  
"Bye Sirius," he told his godfather as he hugged him briefly. "Don't spend too much time out of your disguise. Someone might recognize you."  
  
"Don't worry about me, Harry; I'll be fine. Run along though; you don't want to miss your train," Sirius Black responded.  
  
As Harry broke into a run, he turned to wave to Sirius.  
"Bye!" Harry called one last time as he jumped into the small platform outside the last train compartment of the Hogwarts Express, which he and his two best friends, Ron and Hermione, had to themselves.   
  
From the platform, Harry could see Fred and George Weasley - Ron's twin brothers - whispering seriously to each other. Probably thinking of ways to set up their joke shop in Gryffindor Tower, he thought. The two redheads had paid very careful attention to what kind of gags sold well at the joke shop in Diagon Alley last week. Harry thought over the events of the last week.   
  
  
Last week, before they went to Diagon Alley, the place to get anything magic-related, Harry had given Ron and Hermione some money to buy whatever he wanted, kind of as a back-to-school present.   
  
Ron used the five gold Galleons from Harry to buy two new sets of robes for school and another book on his favorite Quidditch team, the Chudley Cannons. He had saved about twenty-six bronze Knuts to purchase some candy on the train ride to school.   
  
Hermione had taken forever in Diagon Alley to decide what she wanted to purchase with the wizard money that Harry had given her. Finally, after dragging Harry and Ron into practically every shop in the alley, she had made her decision.   
  
"I just have to have an owl, Harry! You've got Hedwig, and Ron has little Pigwidgeon - I need an owl, too," she said, and strode determinedly into Eeylops Owl Emporium, pulling Ron and Harry with her.   
  
Twenty minutes later, she had emerged triumphantly, staggering under the weight of a large silver cage, containing not one, but two owls: A beautiful, large, white snowy owl, and a cute, tiny, reddish-brown minute owl.  
  
"I just couldn't resist; I know you both think I'm silly for getting two owls, but I just had to!" Hermione rambled quickly, as if she felt she owed Harry and Ron an explanation for her purchase of the two owls. "See, now Hedwig's got Eros to keep her company, and Piggie's got little Aphrodite to keep him company!" Hermione had said this all very fast, and looked very pleased with her reasoning.   
  
Harry, too had a purchase to make, but he wouldn't tell his friends what it was. He gave them fourteen Knuts, so they could each buy an ice cream cone while they waited for him. He quickly walked away from them, and soon disappeared into the crowds of Diagon Alley.   
  
While he was gone, Hermione and Ron sat, eating their cones. Ron poured over the pages of his new book as he finished his raspberry sherbet. Hermione took a bite of her mint chocolate-chip ice cream and watched her two new owls hoot to each other - Aphrodite twittering excitedly around the cage, and Eros watching her warily.  
  
After she swallowed her bite of ice cream, she asked Ron, "Where do you think Harry went?"  
  
Ron thought for a second, then replied.  
  
"I dunno," he shrugged innocently. "Maybe he went to find some cat poison for Crookshanks."   
  
He grinned evilly at his friend. Hermione just rolled her eyes, and went back to eating her ice cream.   
  
About three-quarters of an hour later, Harry returned, happily smiling, swinging a small plastic bag from his grip. He plopped himself down in a chair between Hermione and Ron, and set the bag down on the table.   
  
"Well, what'd yeh get?" Ron asked, curiously eyeing the bag.  
  
"Go ahead, have a look!" Harry grinned again.   
  
Hermione stuck her hand into the bag, and pulled something out. It was a very large glasses case. Ron peered at it, confused.  
  
"You got a new pair of glasses?" he questioned his friend.  
  
Harry laughed.   
  
"No, no, I didn't get new glasses, keep looking in the bag; there's more in there."  
  
Hermione pulled out something else. In her hand were two small boxes.   
  
"Contacts?" she asked Harry excitedly.  
  
"Yep," Harry answered proudly. "I don't have to wear my horrible glasses anymore."  
  
"That's awesome, Harry!" Ron told his best friend.   
  
Hermione checked her watch.  
  
"Oh, crap! We're late! We were supposed to meet Fred and George at the Leaky Cauldron ten minutes ago!"  
  
Ron cursed under his breath.   
  
"If it's just George and Fred, they won't care, but if Percy's with them, too, there'll be hell to pay!"  
  
They quickly gathered up their bags and packages, and ran off to go meet up with Ron's seventeen-year-old twin brothers - and hopefully not his nineteen-year-old brother, too.  
  
  
From the purchase of her two owls, Hermione had about nineteen Knuts left over. She shoved those into Ron's outstretched palms when Loretta (the witch who came around with the lunch cart) knocked on the door and asked if they wanted anything to eat before she moved up to the other compartments.   
  
"Buy me as much candy as that will get!" she hollered after him.   
  
He waved her off, combined her nineteen with his twenty-six Knuts, and walked through the doorway into the corridor.  
  
Harry passed Ron out in the hallway on his way into their train car. Hmmm, he thought to himself. Loretta's early with the lunch cart today. He checked his watch - Harry blinked in surprise - it was a quarter to noon already! The train is running really late, today, he realized.  
  
Harry slid open the compartment's door and walked inside. Ron followed a little bit behind him. Harry surveyed his surroundings: Hermione, wearing a goldenrod spaghetti-strap tank top and khakis, was intently reading one of their new textbooks; Eros, Pigwidgeon, and Aphrodite were perched in their cages on the table across the compartment from Hermione's table, hooting softly to each other.   
  
Ron brushed hurriedly past Harry. He had a gigantic pile of sweets in his arms, and staggered a bit as he carried them across the train car. He paused momentarily - turned his face to Harry and winked - then lugged the pile over to where Hermione was sitting, and dumped the load on the table.   
  
Surprised, Hermione looked up, clearly annoyed at Ron, as a handful of Chocolate Frogs and Licorice Wands spilled onto the pages of Advanced Transfiguration.   
  
"Oops! Sorry, Hermione," Ron said, sounding incredibly insincere.   
  
He grinned when she gave him a very pissed-off glare.  
  
"Ron, you git, dump that load somewhere else!"  
  
"Why so sour, Hermione?" Ron appeared to be thoroughly enjoying how irritated his curly-haired friend was getting. "You've been awful grouchy lately - is it that time of the month again, or something?"   
  
He tried hard - and unsuccessfully - suppress his growing smile. Ron leaned a bit closer to Hermione, waiting for her reaction. His grin now stretched from ear to ear of his freckled face.  
  
Smack! Ron recoiled, the smile gone, gently massaging the side of his face that was now steadily throbbing.  
  
"Grow up, Ron!"  
  
Hermione rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the chapter on how to transfigure a couch into a cow.   
  
Harry let out a soft laugh and shook his head. He walked over to one of the compartment's windows. When Harry's emerald eyes looked out into the station, they saw a large, black dog jogging slowly away from the train. The dog looked back at the three friends' train car and then disappeared into the crowd of witches and wizards.   
  
He sighed worriedly and ran a hand through his rumpled black hair. Harry hoped that no one had recognized Sirius.   
  
Sirius Black was one of the few unregistered Animagus, therefore giving him the ability to change into a large, black dog on whim. Harry had warned him against shedding his disguise, but Sirius wouldn't hear of it. He had told Harry that he would see him off to his fifth year at Hogwarts as Sirius Black, Harry's Godfather, not as the black dog known as Snuffles.   
  
I wish here were some way that I could clear his name, Harry thought to himself, as he turned away from the window.   
  
  
Sirius Black had been convicted for the murder of over a dozen people, back around the time when James and Lily Potter (Harry's parents) had been murdered by Lord Voldemort. Because of his "crimes," Sirius had been doomed to a life sentence as a prisoner in the magic world's jail, Azkaban.   
  
Two years ago, Sirius had escaped and fled to Hogwarts to try and warn Harry of the danger he was living with every day. Ron's old, fat, gray rat, Scabbers, wasn't really a rat at all. He was, in fact, a servant of Lord Voldemort, and the person who had really committed all of the murders that Sirius was charged for. Scabbers was really Peter Pettigrew.  
  
By the time that Ron, Harry, and Hermione had finally figured out who Scabbers really was, and tried to do something about it, he had managed to escape. Wormtail (Peter, as he was known to his friends while he was at Hogwarts) had already fled to his master, Voldemort. No one but Dumbledore believed that Sirius was innocent, and that Peter wasn't dead.  
  
  
The train started away from the station with a great lurch, causing Harry to loose his footing and sprawl, face-first on the floor. He stood up and brushed the dust off of his T-shirt. He looked down. He had tripped over one of Ron's bags that had been forgotten about on the floor. Harry righted himself, picked up the bag, and tossed it onto an overhead rack. He moved towards where his two best friends were sitting.   
  
"'Bout time, Harry," joked Ron, as the train began to pick up speed.   
  
Harry sat down next to Hermione - who was still intently reading their new Transfiguration textbook - and across from Ron - who was still rubbing his sore, freckled cheek. Harry turned to face Ron and grinned widely.  
  
"Ready to kick some butt this year in Quidditch?"   
  
"You bet," Ron replied, his mood immediately lifting. "Malfoy's going down!"   
  
Hermione rolled her eyes and breathed something that sounded remotely like "men and their egos." She took a sip of her Dr. Pepper and shook her head.   
  
Ron gave Harry a Cherry Coke out of Hermione's cooler and opened his own can of Sprite. He thought for a second.   
  
"Harry, have you heard who the new Slytherin Captain is?"  
  
"No, but I'm pretty sure it'll be Malfoy. He's gotten lucky when it comes to Quidditch, what with getting on the team a while back and everything - when he's really not that good."  
  
Ron nodded in agreement, and Harry continued.  
  
"All he ever does is cheat - but, then again, he plays for Slytherin, so that isn't a problem for him," Harry finished sarcastically.   
  
"If he is the Captain, you know he'll tell us right away."  
  
"Yeah," Harry added, rolling his eyes. "There's no way he could keep a secret like that for very long."  
  
Ron chuckled.   
  
"You're right about that, Harry."  
  
As Hermione listened to Harry and Ron's conversation, she absent-mindedly stroked her cat, Crookshanks', back.   
  
Ron was saying something about how Malfoy didn't deserve to be on any kind of Quidditch team in the first place, when Harry looked over at Crookshanks. Seeing one of Hermione's pets reminded him of something.   
  
"Do either of you know where Hedwig went to?" he asked Ron and Hermione. "She was in her cage last night before I fell asleep, but you know how I leave her cage door open so she can fly around the room if she gets restless. Have either of you seen her at all, lately?"  
  
Crookshanks purred louder. Harry glanced over at him again. Hermione was cooing him, saying, "Aww, isn't he so adorable; he wants attention. Who's a cute kitty? Who's a cutie? That's right, Crookshanks, you are! You're a cute kitty-cat!  
  
"Sorry, I haven't seen Hedwig."   
  
She turned back to the cat that was sitting on her lap, smiled at Crookshanks, and cuddled him in her tanned arms.  
  
Harry stared at Hermione for a few seconds. He blushed and averted his eyes when she looked up from holding her feline and briefly met his gaze.   
  
"Herm," he asked, using the nickname that only he - and sometimes Ron - called her, "did you do something new with your hair? It looks really nice."   
  
Hermione smiled shyly and replied, "Un-huh. I got my hair permed in June."  
  
Harry took one of her (at least, in his opinion) beautiful curls and wound it around his finger. He let it go, and it bounced back into place. He looked closer at her, and noticed something.  
  
"Your teeth look straighter, and smaller, too. Did you get braces over the summer? Or did you put a spell on them?"  
  
Like you put a spell on me, he thought to himself.  
  
Hermione blushed at how much attention Harry was paying to her.   
  
"Yes, actually-"   
  
"I'll bet that stupid cat did it! I'll bet he ate poor Hedwig," Ron cut her off.   
  
Ron had been lost in his thoughts while the brief exchange between his best friends had been taking place. He now quickly stood and checked to make sure his owl was still in his shiny silver cage.  
  
"Hey, Pig, how are yeh? Are you still alive? You're not in that naughty cat's belly? Good. Sleep well, Pig, and whatever you do, don't open your cage door to strange-looking cats, okay?"  
  
Ron grinned evilly at Harry, and Harry's laugh quickly turned into a hacking cough.  
  
Hermione glared at Harry, and he immediately sobered and "apologized".  
  
"Er, sorry . . . I, um . . . must have . . . uh . . . had something . . .caught in my throat!"  
  
He nodded his head vigorously, as in attempt to make his brown-haired friend believe him. She scowled at him, and turned to Ron.   
  
Hermione's hazel eyes narrowed into little slits, and as she became indignant, her cheeks flushed a darker shade of pink.   
  
"Ron, you're horrible! How could you talk about my cuddly-wuddly-Crookshanks like that? He didn't eat anything that I haven't given him!"   
  
She rocked her cat back and forth in her arms, as one would do to a small infant. Crookshanks, however, looked as if he desperately wanted to be anywhere else at that moment. As she squeezed him tightly again, the obese cat's eyes bulged and he let out a loud meow.  
  
Ron turned on her, ignoring Crookshanks.  
  
"Ah-ha!" he cried with fervor. "The true culprit has been discovered! So you fed poor Hedwig to Crookshanks, who turned out to be, dare I say, an innocent party in all of this, and then the fat cat ate her!"  
  
Harry bugged his eyes comically and attempted to imitate - without her seeing him - Hermione stuffing an owl down Crookshanks' throat. Ron looked at him and sniggered. Harry, who had finished his antics, saw Ron sniggering, and he started laughing, too.   
  
Pretty soon, they were both doubled over with laughter. They were grabbing their aching sides and holding on to each other to keep from toppling over. It didn't work very long. Soon, they were both rolling around on the floor, uncontrollable with laughter. Hermione tried to look very stern, and hide her smile, impending because of how incredibly stupid the two teenage boys looked.  
  
The two stopped laughing for a second, and glanced up from their uncomfortable positions on the floor to look at their friend, who was glowering over them. They looked back at each other and cracked up, rolling over the floor in peals of laughter.   
  
"He didn't do anything of the sort, and neither did I! He wouldn't eat Hedwig! And both of you, stop being such jerks!"   
  
Ron and Harry stopped laughing and looked warily at each other. They couldn't look at each other too long with out starting to laugh again, though, so they quickly looked at the floor and ceiling. They didn't want to take the risk of being lectured by Hermione.  
  
She held her cat possessively.   
  
She looked him saying, "You're a good kitty, Crookshanks, you wouldn't eat Harry's pet, would you? No, you wouldn't. That's right Crookshanks, you wouldn't ever eat Hedwig, or Ron's owl, 'cuz you're such a good kitty!"  
  
Crookshanks let out a loud yawn and licked his chops, grinning as much as a fat cat can grin. This caused the three pairs of eyes to simultaneously look at the cat: one hazel pair large with surprise, one bright green pair slightly smaller in suspicion, and one aqua pair narrowed over a scrunched-up, freckled nose in growing contempt. Crookshanks then resumed contentedly purring and looking smugly at the three faces peering curiously at him.   
  
"He did it - I told you that he did it!" Ron burst out loudly; indignant that what was so obvious to him wasn't clear to his friends.   
  
Hermione and Harry looked in surprise at Ron. Hermione glared at him sternly.   
  
When she opened her mouth to speak, Ron looked knowingly at Harry, and mouthed here comes another lecture. Harry stifled his smile and nodded slightly, never once averting his gaze from Hermione, so she wouldn't suspect anything. Lucky for the two of them, she didn't notice their antics.  
  
"Shhh, you don't want to get us in trouble before we even get to school, do you, Ron? You know all of us are prefects this year, Harry's the Quidditch Captain, and you're the new keeper."   
  
Her voice grew louder.   
  
"We should be setting good examples; not shouting so loud that people in other compartments might hear it! In fact, you should-"  
  
BANG! The door to the compartment clattered loudly as Draco Malfoy and his gooney (and gooney-looking) henchmen, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, stormed into the train car, cutting Hermione's lecture short - fortunately for Ron. Unfortunately for Hermione, Malfoy choose her as his next target for his snide remarks.   
  
"Awww, what'd Wesley and Potter do wrong this time, Granger? Yeh gonna give the bad boys a spanking for being naughty? Hmmm? Then again, they'd probably like that, wouldn't they?" Malfoy taunted sarcastically.  
  
Hermione's face was beat red by now. She was about to reply when Harry stood abruptly, cutting her off.   
  
"Get lost, Draco," he said, also sarcastically, emphasizing Malfoy's unusual first name.   
  
"Or what? You'll Petrify me with Weasley here's ugliness?" Malfoy taunted.   
  
Ron flew out of his seat, shouting at the Slytherin boy, "Get the hell out of here, you son-of-a-"  
  
Harry clamped his hand over his freckle-faced friend's mouth.  
  
"Don't, Ron. He's not worth it," Harry whispered so that only his friend could hear it.   
  
Malfoy let out a deep chuckle at Ron's reprimand. Then, he paused, and looked expectantly at Crabbe and Goyle. They looked at each other, dumbfounded. Then, they finally caught on and let out a few forced guffaws. Suddenly silent, they looked at Malfoy, as if waiting for further instructions. Malfoy sighed exasperatedly and turned back to the trio of Gryffindors.  
  
Hermione was extremely frustrated, trying - barely successfully - to hold back both Ron and Harry, while at the same time, attempting to shush Crookshanks, who was ready to pounce on Malfoy at any second.   
  
Goyle suddenly let out a loud, smelly belch. "Oops, sorry, Boss," he told Malfoy. "Guess I drank too much . . . " Malfoy gave him a warning glare. "Umm . . . Butterbeer. Yeah that's it. I drank too much Butterbeer." He sniggered at his "genius."  
  
Crookshanks, set off by the belch, pounced on Goyle, while Crabbe stood by and guffawed stupidly, looking confused about the whole situation.  
  
Startled, Goyle fell backwards into one of the booths. Crookshanks, meanwhile, was doing an excellent job of tearing Goyle's tight Polo shirt to shreds. Forrest green strips of cloth flew wildly in the small train compartment. Hermione released Ron and Harry and mad a grab for Crookshanks.   
  
Free of Hermione's grasp, Harry and Ron advanced slowly and meaningfully on Malfoy, causing him to pale even more than usual.   
  
"Shit," Malfoy cursed under his breath.  
  
His ice blue eyes, now obviously nervous, darted back and forth across the compartment as he backed towards the doorway to the train car.   
  
He grabbed onto Crabbe's sleeve. Malfoy gave him a pull towards the doorway, and yelled to his other henchman, "Goyle, let's goooo -"   
  
Thud. Malfoy landed on his backside after tripping over the doorway, unintentionally pulling Crabbe down along with him. Ron took one look at the two Slytherins, limbs askew, and burst out in laughter.  
  
Hermione was pulling so hard on her cat that when he finally let go of Malfoy's large, dim-witted goon; it caused Crookshanks and Hermione to fall backwards into Harry. He managed to catch her, but not before the weight of her fall caused the both of them to tumble onto the carpet. Harry did manage to cushion her fall with himself, though unintentional. During the fall, Crookshanks flew out of Hermione's grasp and sprang towards the doorway.   
  
Bang! Crookshanks had smacked into the door face first. Goyle apparently moved faster than they thought he could, managing to scramble quickly out of the train car and close the door before the angered cat could reach him.   
  
Hermione quickly rolled a bit to the side, off of Harry, and he stood up, dusting himself off. He reached down a hand to help her up, and she blushed as she accepted Harry's hand. He gave a tug and pulled her up to her feet. Harry noticed a piece of lint on her shoulder from the carpet and gently brushed it off her skin.   
  
As his hand made contact with her bare skin, she felt an electrifying tingle go up her spine. When she looked at him, she noticed how handsome he looked with the bright sunlight shining on the left side of his face. Just looking at him made Hermione's heart catch in her throat.   
  
"Thanks," Hermione managed to breathlessly get out. "No problem," Harry awkwardly responded, dropping his head to glance uncomfortably at his shoes. He raised his head to look at Hermione's face, and saw her looking at him, too.   
  
He took a small step closer to her, leaving them only a couple of inches apart. It was as if they were somehow connected. The world seemed to disappear. They gazed deeply into each other's eyes. Harry gently raised his hand, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, then leaned a bit nearer to her, closing the gap between them to mere centimeters, and -  
  
"Harry! Hello? Anybody home?" Ron's freckled face squeezed in between Harry and Hermione, his hand waving furiously in front of Harry's face. He lightly smacked Harry on the side of his face, attempting to wake his friend from his trance.  
  
Hermione blinked. The connection had been broken. She had completely forgotten that Ron was in the compartment with them. Harry glanced quickly her way once more, then turned and sat back down. Ron slid into the seat across from him, and Hermione resumed her seat next to Harry.   
  
There were a few seconds of very awkward silence. Ron shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Hermione played with her hair, twirling one long curl around her pointer finger. Harry cracked his knuckles and back, anxiously trying to think of something to say. Finally, something came to him.  
  
"By the way," Harry inquired, "where did Ginny, Fred, and George go to? I haven't seen them today, since we boarded the train."   
  
Hermione - happy to be rid of the awkward silence - answered, "Well, George and Fred went a compartment ahead of ours, to chat with Lee Jordan, and Ginny went to hang out with Neville. Isn't it just soo cute that they're going out? Why do you ask, anyway?"   
  
"Just curious," Harry responded.   
  
Suddenly, one of the windows burst open, and in flew Hedwig.   
  
"There you are!" exclaimed Harry as Hedwig flew over to him, landed on his outstretched hand. She then dropped a letter in the palm of his other hand and began nibbling affectionately on his ear. He stroked the feathers on her back, then looked at the piece of mail in his hand.   
  
Hermione went over to the owls' cage and opened the door for Hedwig. Hedwig flew in, and perched on a stick near Eros. All four owls began hooting quietly to each other, as if discussing Hedwig's journey.  
  
Harry looked at the letter she had delivered for him. It bore the Hogwarts seal and was on the same yellowish parchment, in the same green ink as the letter that he annually received, telling him what he needed for yet another year at Hogwarts. He opened it carefully, so as not to rip it. He pulled the letter out of its envelope. Harry read it to himself.   
  
"Well, what does it say, Harry? Are you gonna read it to us or what?" Ron questioned him, running a hand anxiously through his bright red hair.   
  
Hermione nodded vigorously - her curly hair falling softly around her face - and urged him, "Yes, go on, read it."  
  
Harry grinned at them, and responded, "Sure. I'll read it to you.   
  
  
"Dear Harry,  
"How are you? Doing well, I hope. I am just writing to inform you that you might see a bit of Moony this year. Actually, since Dumbledore hired me as the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher again, you will probably see quite a bit of me.   
"I hope that Hermione and Ron are also faring well. By the way, how is Sirius? I haven't heard from him in a while. I'll have to send him an owl soon. Is he out of hiding yet? See you in class-  
  
"Sincerely,  
"Moony  
"(Professor Remus Lupin)"  
  
  
"Professor Lupin's back?" asked Hermione. "This is great! He was always my favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher."   
  
She grinned happily.   
  
"Mine, too," said Ron - who was thoroughly surprised that they were agreeing on something - and smiled. "He actually knew what he was doing."   
  
  
A while later, they heard a soft knock on the compartment door. Ron looked up from his game of chess with Harry, and got up to open the door. A second later, Ginny came into their compartment with Neville Longbottom and her good friend Colin Creevey. Ron sat back down.  
  
"All right, Harry?" Colin asked as he did so often.   
  
As usual, Harry responded, "Hello, Colin."   
  
He turned to also face Neville and Ginny, who was holding her boyfriend's hand.   
  
Harry continued, "Hi Neville. Hey Ginny." He turned his head to Collin again. "Collin, how's your little brother? Is Dennis excited about the new school year?"   
  
"Oh, you bet! He's doing terrific, Harry. Dennis is in the fourth compartment with a couple of his Second Year friends." Collin paused, and then continued, with a sly smirk on his face. "He's been hanging out with Natalie McDonald a lot. I think he may have a little crush on her."   
  
Collin winked and Harry laughed. Collin, the Matchmaker, Harry thought. Who would've thought? He inwardly grinned at the thought. Boy, I sure wouldn't want him to pair me up with someone!  
  
Ginny took Collin's brief silence as an opportunity to take her turn to say hello to her brother and his friends.  
  
"Hey Ron, hi Hermione . . . hello Harry," said Ginny, blushing slightly.   
  
Neville, who was looking around the train car confusedly, didn't take notice.   
  
Ron leaned over slightly and whispered in Harry's ear - with a hint of amusement - "I think she's still rather fond of you, Harry!"   
  
Ron sniggered softly, and Ginny's face went redder.   
  
"Shut up, Ron!" Harry whispered back out of the side of his mouth.   
  
Hermione turned to Ginny and smiled warmly - after a stern glare at Ron - and asked her, "Why don't the three of you sit down?"  
  
Hermione scooted closer to Harry - making the two of them blush - and Ron scooted over next to the window. Ginny sat next to Ron. Collin sat across from her, looking at Hermione's book with interest. She let him see the page on how to perform painkiller charms.  
  
Neville bent down, his rear end sticking up in the air, and was apparently looking under the seat for something. Embarrassed, Ginny tugged hard on Neville's black robes and pulled him up and he squeezed into the seat next to her.  
  
"Anyway, Ron, I came in here to tell you that we'll be at Hogwarts in about a half an hour, and that you should probably pack up whatever you've got out and put your robes on," Ginny rambled.   
  
She paused, turning expectantly to Neville.   
  
He raised his head and saw the five friends looking at him, waiting for him to talk. Neville spoke up. "I'm checking with everyone to see if anyone's seen my toad. I've lost Trevor again. Have any of you seen him?"   
  
"No, we haven't seen your toad, but if we do, we'll bring him to you right away," Hermione promised.   
  
"Ginny, when you pass through Fred and George's compartment, could you tell them to come and get their baggage?" Ron asked.   
  
"Sure thing. We should be going," she said as she pushed Neville out of the booth. Unprepared for the action, he fell on the floor with a dull thud. He laughed and got up, tripping over his too-large robes, and falling down again. Five other voices joined in with his, all six friends now laughing.  
  
After the three smaller Gryffindors had left, Hermione took the new course book (The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 5) out again, and began intently pouring over its pages.  
  
  
She was telling Ron and Harry about melting and freezing charms when a loud pounding on the compartment door interrupted her. Harry turned to look out the window, pretending awe at the beautiful countryside, so that she wouldn't notice his large yawn. He faced her again quickly, feigning rapt interest in the charms she was talking about. Welding charms, or something, he thought.  
  
Ron stood, stretching his limbs.  
  
"That'll be Fred and George," he said - with great relief over leaving Hermione's lecture on charms - as he walked over to the door.  
  
He opened the door, and George stepped in. George had freckles and bright red hair, just like Ron - and all of the other Weasleys, too, for that matter. It would have been easy to identify the two as brothers. Unlike Ron, however, George wasn't tall and lanky, but more of an average height and sturdily built. All of the Weasley boys - with the exception of Percy, who now spent too much time in his office, working for the Ministry of Magic - were muscular.   
  
Ginny, too, was beginning to develop strong muscles, as she had been enjoying a Muggle sport, gymnastics, lately. One of her friends from Hogwarts, who had grown up in the Muggle community, had taught gymnastics to her. Ron was starting to get fed up with Ginny showing him her new moves all the time. He didn't really understand why she enjoyed "twirling and flipping" so, when she could, instead, be zooming through the air on a broomstick, playing Quidditch.  
  
The older Weasley walked briskly to the identical trunks, but paused a second, and looked around, as if he was missing something. He turned and walked quickly back to the doorway, and stuck his freckled head back out of the compartment. He gave a tug, and another freckled boy, also with bright red hair tumbled into the car.   
  
"What'd yeh do that for, George?" Fred indignantly questioned his twin as he dusted himself off. He placed his hands on his hips, waiting for his twin's response.  
  
George ignored him and yelled into the other compartment, "Angelina, he'll be right back, okay?"  
  
Satisfied, he turned back to his identical brother.  
  
"You can flirt with Angelina later; we need to take our stuff to our compartment and get changed," George said with a tone of finality in his voice, as if daring Fred to argue with him.  
  
"All right already! I'm coming."  
  
Fred stuck his head into the other compartment again and yelled back to his girlfriend, "Don't you go anywhere, Angelina! I'll be right back as soon as "Master" George and I have gotten our trunks."  
  
He turned back into the last train car, away from the girlish giggling in the other compartment.  
  
He pulled away from George's grasp on his shirt and strode over to the corner where their trunks had been placed on one of the tables. With a loud grunt, he pulled down his trunk first, and it landed on the carpeted floor with a dull thud. He then did the same to George's.   
  
"Oi, Ron, Harry, give us a hand with these," George told the younger boys.  
  
The four then dragged their trunks two compartments ahead where they were sitting with the dreadlocked Lee Jordan, and the four boys' other three Quidditch teammates: Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, and Katie Bell.   
  
While they were gone, Hermione started packing away the leftover sweets from the journey in a brown paper bag; a package of Bertie Bott's Every-Flavor Beans, some Chocolate frogs, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, Licorice Wands, Cauldron Cakes, and Pumpkin Pasties.   
  
As she finished packing them away, Ron and Harry entered the compartment again.   
  
"George and Fred are all set and getting changed," Ron told Hermione.   
  
"Speaking of," Hermione commented, "we should probably get changed, too. You guys go ahead and get changed into your robes in here, and I'll go in the bathroom in the back of the car. Knock on the door when you're both done, and I'll come out then." She turned back to them, and continued. "Don't worry, I won't peek!" She laughed jokingly. She opened her trunk, which she had placed in the corner, and grabbed her new robes, She then walked over to the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her.  
  
Ron chuckled and turned to Harry, who was rolling his eyes exasperatedly.  
  
"Girls," he intoned, and sighed.   
  
"What's up with you, Harry?" Ron questioned his best friend.   
  
"Nothin' . . . nothin', really," Harry quickly replied, and pulled on his black Hogwarts robes.   
  
"Un-huh. Sure," Ron said, not believing him for a second.   
  
He had an idea of what might be bugging his friend.   
  
"You still like Cho Chang?" he asked Harry as he pulled his new robes out of his trunk.   
  
Cho Chang was the Seeker on the Ravenclaw house Quidditch team. Harry had liked her since his third year at Hogwarts.  
  
Ron yanked them on over his head. He looked down at his black robes, admiring how nice they looked. Probably the nicest I've had yet, Ron noted to himself, with more than a hint of bitterness and sarcasm. When Harry didn't answer his question soon, he turned to his friend, a concerned look on his freckled face.  
  
"Harry?" Ron cautiously started. "You okay?"  
  
Harry was silent for a few seconds.   
  
"I dunno, Ron. I still feel bad about Cedric. I don't know if Cho was in love with Cedric, but she certainly liked him . . . and I got him killed! It just wouldn't be right -"  
  
Ron turned on Harry, his robes swirling around him.   
  
"Don't you ever, ever say that again, Harry! Ever! I never want to hear you blame yourself for Cedric's death again! It wasn't your fault! You didn't kill him. Voldemort killed him with . . . the unforgivable curse . . . the killing curse . . . you know . . . Avada Kedavra."  
  
Ron paused and gulped. He was surprised at his ability to say the Dark Lord's name aloud. He hadn't meant to say it. It had just kinda . . . happened.  
  
"It wasn't your fault . . . how could you be to blame for his death?"  
  
Harry looked at Ron, and when he did, there was such pain in Harry's eyes that Ron couldn't bear it. Ron quickly averted his gaze.   
  
Harry sat down and began talking quietly.  
  
"I am to blame for Cedric's death. I was the one who suggested that . . . that both of us take the trophy. Cedric was going to let just me take it. He was willing to let me take the complete victory. He would have reached the trophy first, were it not for the giant spider . . . and the victory would have been his - all his. I saw the spider right before it attacked him, and I saved him. I didn't even think about it. I just helped him out."  
  
The bathroom door opened a crack. When its inhabitant was sure that both boys had already changed, she inched the door all the way open.   
  
Ron glanced momentarily Hermione's way, then made a small gesture for her to come over to the table with him and Harry. Ron sat down across from Harry. Hermione strode quickly and quietly towards them, her robes swooshing softly around her ankles.   
  
Harry was preoccupied with his own thoughts, and wasn't paying much attention to anything. Hermione soundlessly slipped into the seat, next to Harry.   
  
He looked so . . . full of pain. She wasn't sure what she should do. Should she hug him, or should she pat him sympathetically on the shoulder? Should she hold his hand . . . or should she dare to . . . kiss him? A tingle went up her back at the thought of her and Harry . . . kissing. She sighed. Hermione thought for a second, then made up her mind.   
  
Carefully, she took his clammy hand in hers and gave it a gentle, calming squeeze. He briefly looked at her, gave a weak smile, and gently squeezed her hand back. He unconsciously rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand, calming both of them.  
  
"Cedric was so grateful that I had saved him and - by nature, I guess - so generous, that he wouldn't take the victory that was rightly his. I wouldn't allow him to completely give up his victory, though. He was in his seventh year. It was his chance to be great . . . to really be sensational! Together, we would win the Triwizard Tournament for Hogwarts. Together, we would be victorious! We would both make all of Hogwarts proud!   
  
The emotional pain of his memories was now so great that Harry could hardly bear it. He knew that he was very close to crying.  
  
"So, we both took hold of the trophy. It was a portkey . . . but we obviously didn't know that it was. It took us directly to Volde- Sorry. I mean You-Know-Who. You- Know-Who apparently didn't see any need to keep Cedric alive . . . so he disposed of Diggory," Harry finished bitterly, almost at tears.   
  
Hermione noticed this, and turned to Harry. She pulled him closer to her, giving him a hug. Ron turned away quickly, so the others couldn't see the tears forming in his eyes.   
  
Harry was extremely relieved when Hermione pulled him into the hug. I needed this, he thought. I really needed this. Thank God for Hermione and Ron. I don't know what I would do without them. He held Hermione tightly, running one hand through her beautifully curly brown hair, and wished he would never have to let her go. Emotionally exhausted, Harry lowered his head a few inches, until it was resting gently on Hermione's shoulder.  
  
Hermione's heart skipped a beat as Harry held her closer to him. This feels so right, she thought to herself, bringing the distance between the two of them to none. She felt him lay his head down on her shoulder, and she leaned down and kissed the top of his head. Hermione felt warm tears on her shoulder, soaked through her new robes. He's crying, she thought to herself, Harry's crying. He shouldn't have to bear this burden, and yet he does. He blames himself for the death of Cedric.  
  
She sighed into his jet-black hair. She knew what she had to do. Hermione gently pulled back a bit, crooked her finger, and placed it horizontally under Harry's chin. She lifted it so that he was now looking directly into her eyes. Those are the deepest eyes I've ever seen, she thought, as she gazed into his vibrantly green eyes.   
  
"Harry," she started soothingly, taking her finger out from under his chin.   
  
She ran her hand through his rumpled black hair, unintentionally brushing aside a lock and revealing his scar. She dropped her hand to cradle the side of his face. Hermione looked at Harry tenderly.   
  
"You can't keep blaming yourself. You did nothing wrong. Do you hear me? You did nothing wrong! There wasn't anything you could have done for Cedric. If he had taken the trophy alone, You-Know-Who would've still killed him without hesitation. Harry, don't you get it?   
  
"There's nothing you could have done for him. You have to let go of it. It's in the past. It's over and done with. Honor Cedric by letting go. Remember him always - but don't let his memory continue to give you such pain. Do you honestly think that Cedric would want to be remembered . . . like that? As a memory that causes you pain? Remember him as the hero that he was - and still is - not as a painful memory for you."  
  
Harry shook his head, his disheveled, jet-black hair flying wildly. The top of his head still felt warm from Hermione's tender kiss.  
  
"You're right, Hermione."   
  
He sighed and gave her the weakest of weak smiles, then leaned over and brushed his lips across her cheek. Her hand dropped gently to rest in the palm of his other free hand. He held her warm hand tightly, and pulled her back to him so he could hold her again. His next words were to himself, murmured into her brown hair.  
  
"I need to start remembering Cedric by honoring him for dying his heroic death. If I keep blaming myself, I won't be able to bear it anymore."   
  
Then, as if talking to Cedric himself, Harry raised his head to look up and said, "I let go. I'll always remember, though. I promise."  
  
He gave Hermione a brief squeeze and then let go of her.   
  
Still holding hands, they tried to make small talk with Ron about the new school year.  
  
  
A few minutes later, the train lurched to a screeching halt. The three friends gathered their trunks and bags. Harry carried the now empty owl cage (they had let all four owls fly out the open window when the train stopped); Ron carried the bag of left over sweets.  
  
When they stepped out into the bright sunlight, the three friends could see their home for the school year: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
  
  
  
Author's Note:(another one) ;o) So, did you like it?? Please review now. Please, (I know I already said it, but I'm gonna say it again) review this! I'll post Ch. 2 if I get enough good comments!! *Please - no flames!!*  
  
-Kel-  
  



	2. A Girl Called Lissy

A/N:I updated this one, too. :o) Hey all!! I'm back again! :o) Here's Chapter Two of Hp and the New Revelation, and - again - if you haven't read book 4, please don't spoil it for yourself . . . and you will if you read this. Anyway, PLEASE review!! I have decided that I'm not gonna post the next chapter until I get at least 25 reviews, so if you want to read more, then you'd better get reviewing!! ;o) Also, please, no flames, k? Constructive criticism is ALWAYS welcome, though - so long as it's not too criticizing. :o) Oh - what are you still reading this Author's Note for?? Go on - read the good stuff - read my kewl story!! :o)  
-Kel-  
  
Disclaimer:Basically all this stuff - with the exception of a couple new characters - belongs to the wonderfully talented Ms. J. K. Rowling - so please don't sue me!!   
(Start reading the story already!!) :o)  
  
  
  
Harry Potter and the New Revelation  
Ch. 2  
The Girl Called Lissy  
  
  
Hermione - intent on keeping away the awkward silence that had been persisting for the last few minutes - kept up a steady stream of mindless chatter. Harry and Ron were starting to get annoyed with her babbling though, by the time they had reached the carriages that would be taking the numerous students to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry on the edge of Hogsmeade.   
  
" -And would you look at Parvati flirting with Seamus. It's quite hilarious, don't you think?" Hermione was saying.   
  
Ron turned and was about to tell Hermione what he thought about how irritating she was being, when she shoved past him and Harry, flailing her tanned arms wildly.  
  
"Stop!" she was screaming. "Do you hear me, Dean? Move! That's our carriage! Get your own!"  
  
With that, Hermione grabbed Dean Thomas by his shirt collar and yanked him away from the horseless carriage. She triumphantly stood in the doorway, now yelling at Harry and Ron.  
  
"Come on, you two! I haven't all day! Throw the trunks in the back, and grab Crookshanks, too, while you're at it, would you?"  
  
Ron and Harry just looked at Hermione, indignant with disbelief, as she turned and went inside the carriage to sit down and make herself comfy.   
Ron turned to Harry and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "That time of the month . . ."  
  
Harry laughed quietly and shook his head.  
  
"C'mon, Ron, let's get these trunks put away b'fore 'Her Royal Highness' comes out here and yells at us again."  
  
Harry grabbed his trunk and lifted. He quickly tossed it into the luggage compartment of their carriage. Harry dusted off his hands and went to start on the other two trunks. When he turned around, he found that Ron's trunk hadn't budged an inch. Harry looked up at his redheaded friend.   
  
Ron was absent-mindedly staring out into space. Harry waved his hand in front of Ron's face to get his attention.  
  
"Ron. Hey Ron! Ron . . . Hello, Ron - anyone home in there? Earth to Ron!"  
  
As Harry practically screamed the last part, Ron jumped and put his hand to his heart.  
  
"What're yeh trying to do, Harry? Give your best friend a heart attack or something?"  
  
Ron glared accusingly at Harry, as his best friend looked at him in indignant disbelief.  
  
"Ron, what's up with you? Where'd yeh go there for a second?"  
  
"Huh?" Ron looked confused. Realization hit him. "Oh. See, I was just looking at -"   
  
Ron pointed to his right and trailed off, noting the smug look on Harry's face when he saw what - or who - Ron had been looking at. Harry sniggered. Ron's hand quickly dropped.  
  
"Lavender, Ron? I feel so . . . behind on my gossip! And here I was under the impression that you think she's a total ditz!"  
  
Ron cursed under his breath, not actually meaning to point out to Harry who he had been gazing at.  
  
"I, uh . . . umm . . . aww . . . just forget it, Harry."  
  
Ron's previously pinkish ears had now gone a red so bright they rivaled his hair.  
  
"Un-huh." Harry grinned as he helped Ron with his trunk.  
  
The two teenage boys easily hefted Ron's trunk into the back of the carriage, and then went to pick up Hermione's. They each grabbed one handle on the ends of their friend's enormous piece of luggage and lifted. They lifted again. And again.   
  
Harry grunted and Ron winced as they struggled to heave Hermione's extremely heavy trunk a few feet into the luggage compartment. When they finally succeeded, the carriage rocked back and forth from the weight of Hermione's trunk. The two boys bent over their knees, panting with exhaustion.   
  
"Blimey! What's she got in that thing? Boulders, or something?" Harry asked, staring at the trunk in amazement.  
  
"I'm pretty sure we don't want to know, Harry," Ron answered him with a wary smirk on his face.  
  
Harry shook his head in disbelief.  
  
"I think you're right about that."  
  
He sniggered and headed into the carriage. Ron followed a few paces behind him. Harry ducked his head and sat down on one of the carriage's big, velvet-covered, coushy forest-green seats next to Hermione. Ron squeezed in next to Harry, after calling out briefly to his sister and Neville.  
  
"Oi! Ginny, Neville! Hurry up! There's still room in here for a few more."  
  
"All right Ron - hold your horses, we're hurrying," Ginny hollered back to her brother, out of breath from lugging her enormous trunk to the carriage. "Give me a hand here, would yeh?"  
  
Ron and Harry popped back out of the carriage and hurried to help Neville and Ginny with their luggage. Neville's trunk was practically weightless compared to Ginny's. After huffing and puffing a little bit, the three boys managed to get the two trunks into the back, and they then followed Ginny into the carriage.  
  
She promptly took a seat across from Hermione and pulled Neville down next to her. Harry and Ron resumed their previous seats. Ron pulled the door shut behind him, and the carriage took off at full speed, already behind the others, as it had to wait for its two extra passengers to board.  
  
The five students kept up a constant stream of friendly chatter all the way to Hogwarts. Neville's toad - Trevor - was next to him on the seat. Crookshanks was curled up happily on Hermione's lap. The trip to the school seemed to take longer than the usual this year.   
  
Hermione, who was very sleepy from the train ride to Hogsmeade, told herself that she closed her eyes, she would just take a quick rest.  
  
  
Twenty minutes later, she jerked awake, sending Crookshanks sprawling angrily on the carriage floor. Though she was half-asleep, she quickly realized something. To her absolute horror, she found that she had taken her nap on Harry's shoulder. She turned to him, her brown eyes wide.  
  
"Harry, I'm really sorry - I didn't mean to - "  
  
"Hey, don't worry about it," he interrupted her soothingly. "It's okay, really. We should be there in about another twenty minutes. The carriage got lost - that's why it's taking so long to get to school. Anyway, you were sleeping so peacefully; I didn't want to wake you until we got to Hogwarts."  
  
He smiled reassuringly at her, and Hermione felt like her heart had melted. She smiled back at him, and he patted his shoulder, inviting her to continue her nap.  
  
"Thanks," she said, resting her head back on Harry's broad shoulder. She quickly fell back asleep, slumbering comfortably on her friend's shoulder. Her last thought before she slipped off into dreamland was, I sure hope I didn't snore - or drool on his shoulder . . .  
  
  
"Hey, Hermione . . . wake up . . . Hermi, we're here . . ."  
  
Hermione awoke for the second time to a soothing voice and someone gently shaking her awake.  
  
"Hmmm . . ." She lazily stretched her arms over her head and sat up straight.  
  
Still half-asleep, she let out a gaping yawn and stretched her arms further. This time, though, her right arm made contact with something solid.  
  
"Ow!"  
  
Hermione quickly turned to see what she had hit.  
  
"Oh my gosh! Harry!" She put a hand to her mouth in shock. "I'm so sorry! Really - I am! I didn't mean to -"  
  
"No, no it's okay. I know you didn't mean to. Don't worry about it." He grinned good-naturedly at her. "Good to know you've got a good defense ready - you know, in case someone unwanted tries to wake you up," Harry added jokingly.  
  
Oh, believe me, Harry, you're about as far from unwanted as you can get, she thought, smiling to herself.   
  
"So, we're almost to Hogwarts now?" she questioned Harry.  
  
"Well Hermione, look around the carriage. Do you see anyone else in here?"  
  
She turned her head, visually taking in the whole compartment.  
  
"Where did everyone else go?" she asked, confused.  
  
Harry laughed.  
  
"We're at Hogwarts, silly!" Smiling, he tugged on one of her many shiny curls. "They've already gone in!"  
  
"Gone in?" Hermione cried. "Oh no! We'll be late! Has the Sorting Ceremony started yet?"   
  
She looked very worried at the prospect of missing the ceremony.   
  
"No, why?" Harry answered.  
  
"Well, you see -" Hermione started, but then thought of something else. "Wait a second - why did you wait for me? How come you didn't just up and leave, like the others did? I suppose I would've woken up . . . eventually."  
  
Harry turned from her, but not before shoe could see an embarrassed blush quickly creeping across his face.  
  
"I uh . . . ummm . . . I figured you would be scared . . . if you woke up alone. I mean, if I was asleep, and when I woke up, everyone was gone, I sure as heck'd be pretty worried."   
  
He talked very quickly, as if trying to get past the subject. Hermione took a step closer to him.  
  
"Well, thank you. You're right - I would have been scared."  
  
She leaned over to give him a quick peck on the cheek. Her lips, however, did not make contact with the side of Harry's face. Instead, her lips meshed with his as he turned to catch her kiss on his mouth instead of his cheek.  
  
The kiss lasted only but a second. Harry pulled back, realizing what he had done; his face was the same shade of red as Ron's flaming hair.  
  
"I uh . . . I mean . . . ummm . . . sorry about . . . that . . ."  
  
Hermione - who now had a contented little smile on her face - quickly interrupted him.  
  
"No, no . . . it's okay . . . I mean . . . you didn't do anything wrong . . ." Hermione turned away, as it was she who was now blushing. "Actually, Harry . . . I thought that . . . well, everything you did was quite right . . ."  
  
She trailed off, blushing furiously. Harry put a hand on her shoulder and turned her around to face him. He moved nearer to her; closing the gap between them down to almost nothing again and -  
  
Hermione suddenly pulled back and turned away from Harry again. She picked up her cat.   
  
He was gonna to kiss you! You fool! Why did you pull away? Hermione furiously reprimanded herself, mad at herself for being stupid.  
  
"We should get going; the others will wonder what happened to us," Hermione said awkwardly, twirling one of her curls around her pointer finger.  
  
She let her curl bounce back into place, and shifted the heavy Crookshanks to her left arm. Hermione started playing with a curl again - it was a habit that she couldn't seem to break, and it really bugged her. She looked nervously at Harry, waiting for his response.  
  
"Yeah," Harry said, intently watching her play with her hair.   
  
He frowned disappointedly when she stopped.   
  
"I guess we should hurry up; we don't want to miss the Sorting Ceremony."  
  
He hopped down out of the carriage and turned around, offering Hermione a helping hand down. She accepted and quickly jumped to the ground, causing dust to fly. After they had brushed the dust off of their black robes, Harry and Hermione headed over toward their school.   
  
As they advanced up the stone stairs, Harry warily eyed the menacing gargoyle statues on either side of the doorway. He had never been fully certain that they weren't alive - after everything he'd experienced at Hogwarts, he felt that nothing would surprise him. Harry held open the gigantic wooden doors for Hermione, and the two friends walked inside into the cavernous Entry Hall.  
  
However, he was surprised, though, when Hermione calmly took his hand and led him into the Great Hall. Harry glanced at her. Hermione's curly brown hair fell softly over her shoulders and she had a happy - yet determined - look on her beautiful face. Her large, brown eyes were narrowed slightly - as they did when she was thinking about something, which to Harry seemed quite often.  
  
Hermione sensed his gaze and turned her head to smile at him. He grinned back at her, then led her past the Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw Tables, over to the Gryffindor Table where Ron was already sitting next to Ginny (who was -of course - sitting next to Neville.)  
  
Grinning, Ron waved his friends over. Harry sat down next to Seamus Finnigan and across from Ron. Hermione pulled herself out a chair next to Harry, making sure that the chair next to her was empty. Ron looked back and forth between Hermione and Harry in mild confusion, teasing them.  
  
"What took the two of you so long? Didja get lost, or somethin'?"  
  
Hermione quickly let go of Harry's hand. She turned and coughed; hoping fervently that no one noticed her strange behavior. Harry looked very uncomfortable, and kept tugging on the collar of his robes.  
  
"Ummm, yeah . . . something like that . . ." Harry started, but was saved from certain embarrassment when a door on the far side of the Great Hall burst open with a clang. Professor McGonagall ushered in a long line of students to be sorted.  
  
"Look, the Sorting Ceremony's starting - let's watch - we can talk later, okay?"  
  
Ron started to say something in response - possibly something about how he didn't care about watching the ceremony anyway - but it didn't matter, because no one was paying any attention to him anymore.  
  
Harry remembered how nervous he had been before it was his turn to get sorted into a house. The Sorting Hat hadn't exactly told him what he wanted to hear when he put it on his head for the first time. Harry's second experience with the Sorting Hat wasn't any more reassuring.   
  
  
When the Chamber of Secrets was open in his second year, he had been called to Dumbledore's office. While waiting for him, Harry had spied the Hogwarts Sorting Hat as he was looking around. He then glanced quickly at the door, to make sure that no one was coming, and he grabbed the hat and slowly lowered it onto his head. It had then talked to him:  
  
"Bee in your bonnet, Harry Potter?"  
  
"Er, yes," Harry muttered. "Er-sorry to bother you-I wanted to ask-"  
  
"You've been wondering wether I put you in the right House," said the hat smartly. "Yes . . . you were particularly difficult to place. But I stand by what I said before" -Harry's heart lept- "you would have done well in Slytherin-"  
  
  
Harry shook his head slightly to clear his thoughts and turned his attention back to the ceremony.  
  
Ron looked over the line of First Years, and he noticed something strange.  
  
"Hey - Ginny - look at that tall girl - the one fourth from the front of the line - yeah, her - she doesn't look like a First Year, does she?"  
He turned to Harry.  
  
"I hope she's not a First Year. I mean, it'd be great if she was close to our age, eh Harry?"  
  
Raising his eyebrows up and down suggestively, he reached across the table and lightly punched Harry on his shoulder. Harry rolled his eyes at his best friend's antics.  
  
"She doesn't look like a First Year, because she's not a First Year, Ron," Hermione importantly cut in. "She's my cousin."  
  
"Really?" Ron turned to her - he was excited now. "Yeh think you could introduce us, or something?"  
  
Ron shook his head in infatuated disbelief.  
  
"Dang. SHE - IS - HOT. Whaddya think of her, Harry?" He turned back to his black-haired friend expectantly.  
  
"I uh . . . well . . . I guess she's pretty . . . I mean . . ."  
  
Ron laughed.  
  
"So, she's got you speechless, too? Well, don't worry; you're not the only one - look."  
  
Harry followed Ron's arm with his eyes and looked around the Great Hall. Male gazes from all four of the tables were fixed intently on Hermione's cousin. He laughed when he saw Malfoy's wide-open mouthed astonishment. I wonder if she's part Veela, like Fleur Delacour. She is pretty, Harry thought, but she doesn't hold a candle to -   
  
"Adams, Melissa!"  
  
McGonagall had interrupted his thoughts by calling out the name of the first person to be sorted. Tiny Melissa Adams made her way slowly over to the Sorting Hat, which was sitting on its usual stool. Melissa gingerly picked up the hat and placed it on top of her unruly mop of messy golden hair. The Sorting Hat slid down over her eyes. After a second or two -  
  
"RAVENCLAW!"  
  
A loud burst of applause and whistling followed the Sorting Hat's proclamation as little Melissa walked quickly over to the table second from the left and took a seat.  
  
"Andrews, Harrison!"  
  
"GRYFFINDOR!"  
  
The whole Gryffindor Table was applauding wildly, stomping and cheering for this year's first new Gryffindor.  
  
"DiVino, Antonio!"  
  
A smug looking little Italian boy sauntered over to the stool, and dropped the Sorting Hat on top of his dark hair. After a second, the hat shouted -   
  
"SLYTHERIN!"  
  
This time, the Slytherin Table erupted in loud cheers.  
  
"Hall, Brian!  
  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"  
  
Brian was greeted by the enthusiastic cheering of the Hufflepuff Table. Their cheering wasn't quite as loud or rambunctious as the other three tables' had been, though - the Hufflepuffs were still mourning Cedric Diggory's death.  
  
"Harper, Lucky!"  
  
"GRYFFINDOR!"  
  
Lucky quickly took a seat at the Gryffindor Table, next to Morgan Ford, a boy in his Second Year. They quickly hit it off, and were deep in conversation within a brief matter of seconds.  
  
"James, Christopher!"  
  
"RAVENCLAW!"  
  
"Kidwell, Stuart!"  
  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"  
  
"Kingston, Zoë!"  
  
"GRYFFINDOR!"  
  
McGonagall looked at her list of new students to call the next name, and did a double take.   
  
"Krum . . . Viktor!" She called, and the Great Hall erupted in loud whispers.  
  
Hermione turned to Ron and Harry and asked, "What's Viktor doing here? I thought he had graduated!"  
  
"Well," Ron began, "I guess pretty-boy Viktor wasn't as smart as he seemed. I wonder what house he'll be sorted into. By the way, where is he?"  
  
The whole school seemed to be wondering the same question. Where was Viktor?  
  
With a great BANG, the door into the Great Hall flew open, and someone cloaked in dark burgundy ran in. The stranger ran right up to the front of the Hall, and talked briefly with Professor Dumbledore. Dumbledore nodded his head, and gestured him towards the Sorting Hat.   
  
The stranger took off their burgundy cloak, and it was suddenly very obvious to everyone that this person who was now wearing black Hogwarts robes was none other than Viktor Krum.   
  
Krum sat down on the stool, and placed the Sorting Hat on his head. It had barely made contact with the top of his dark hair when it screamed -  
  
"SLYTHERIN!"  
  
Krum gathered up his cloak and went to sit at the Slytherin Table. He smiled at Hermione as he passed the Gryffindor Table. She gave him a weak smile back, and as soon as he had passed her, buried her face in her arms, flushing bright red with embarrassment.   
  
Malfoy quickly shoved another Fifth Year Slytherin - Keith Jefferson - out of the seat next to him, and waved Krum over. He sat quickly next to Malfoy, who was now looking quite smug.   
  
The sorting continued.  
  
"Levine, Sheila!"  
  
"SLYTHERIN!"  
  
"LaRue, Phillipe!"  
  
"RAVENCLAW!"  
  
McGonagall rolled her eyes when she saw the next name.  
  
"Lockhart, Pearl!"  
  
Harry looked at Pearl Lockhart and groaned, shaking his head. She was a carbon copy of Gilderloy Lockhart - their Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor during their second year at Hogwarts. Pearl had golden blonde hair, light eyes, and appeared that she believed that the world worshiped the ground that she walked on.   
Gilderloy Lockhart was as big of a ditz as they came, and extremely stuck-up, self-centered, conceited, and in general, a no-good, ignorant git. Harry only hoped that Pearl - who was obviously his much younger sister - was absolutely nothing like her older brother.  
  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"  
  
Thank God! Harry thought to himself, and when he looked at Ron, he could tell that his best friend was thinking the same. If she did turn out to be like the older Lockhart, he didn't think there was any way he would be able to stand having to put up with her in the Common Room every day.  
  
Pearl Lockhart jauntily sauntered over to the Hufflepuff Table, swaying her tiny hips. Some of the younger Hufflepuff boys had hopeful looks on their faces, and were trying to get her to go sit by them.  
  
"Moore, Elizabeth!"  
  
Hermione's pretty cousin walked gracefully over to the stool on which the Sorting Hat rested - Ron's eyes following her the whole time - and sat down, placing the hat on top of her long, pale blonde hair. The Sorting Hat was quiet for a few seconds, and then called out quite loudly -  
  
"GRYFFINDOR!"  
  
Ron and Hermione stood up and applauded for her, and Harry quickly followed suit. Hermione waved her cousin over to the empty seat next to her, and the four sat down.  
  
"I'll introduce everyone as soon as the Sorting Ceremony's done, all right?"  
  
Hermione turned to watch the rest of the Ceremony. Ron looked as if he were about to strongly object to having to wait another second to be introduced, but thought better of it, and also turned his attention back to the Ceremony.  
  
A pair of twins - "Nicholas, Holly!" and "Nicholas, David!" - were sorted into Hufflepuff.  
  
"O'Donnell, Patrick!" was placed in Gryffindor.  
  
"Ryan, Joseph!"  
  
"RAVENCLAW!"  
  
"Schmidt, Inge!"  
  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"  
  
"Smith, Christina!" went to Slytherin with "Torquemada, Mercedes!", and Ravenclaw got "Underwood, Rebecca!" and "Vaughn, Meredith!"  
  
With only three students left to be sorted, "Windsor, Martin!" was placed in Slytherin.  
  
"Yarborough, Kathryn!"  
  
"HUFFLEPUFF!"  
  
And then, finally -  
  
"Zimmerman, Victoria!"  
  
"SLYTHERIN!"  
  
McGonagall rolled up the parchment she had been reading off and put away the Sorting Hat and stool. She went over to the Staff Table and took her seat next to Professor Dumbledore. Dumbledore smiled widely as he stood and said only one word -  
  
"Eat!"  
  
Magically, heaps of food materialized in front of the students, and they wasted no time digging in.  
  
Ron grabbed a chicken leg and took a large bite. He smiled to himself, savoring the taste. He swallowed the rather large bite and turned to Hermione.   
  
"So, are yeh gonna introduce us to your cousin, or what?" Ron glared at Hermione, trying - unsuccessfully - to look dangerously irritated. Hermione sniggered at how stupid he looked, as he had an unnoticed bit of chicken on the corner of his mouth.  
  
"What? What're yeh laughing at? Stop laughing at me, Hermione!"  
  
By now, Harry, too had noticed the bit of food that Ron had on his face and was laughing uncontrollably. He put a hand on Hermione's shoulder to keep himself from falling out of his chair. Elizabeth didn't see the food on Ron's face, so she was confusedly giggling at how silly Harry and Hermione looked.   
  
When Hermione finally stopped laughing (it had just made her laugh harder when Harry started laughing, too), she turned back to Ron, trying to hide her smirk.  
  
"Saving some chicken for later?" she asked him sarcastically.  
  
"What -" Ron started, feeling his face for bits of food. He stopped when he felt the chicken, and quickly brushed it off.  
  
"It wasn't that funny, Hermione," he complained grouchily, mad at being embarrassed in front of Hermione's cousin.  
  
"Actually, Ron - it was that funny!" Hermione replied, giggling again.  
  
Ron just rolled his eyes and sighed exasperatedly.   
  
"Well - are you going to introduce us or not?"  
  
"Sure. Guys - and girl, sorry, Ginny - this is my cousin Elizabeth Moore - Liz, this is Ron Weasley - Harry Potter - Ginny Weasley, Ron's her brother - Neville Longbottom - and Seamus Finnigan."  
  
Hermione, pleased with her introductions, turned to her cousin. Elizabeth rolled her eyes.  
  
"Herm, come on - you know that I hate it when you call me Liz."   
  
She turned to the others.  
  
"You guys seem cool enough - you can call me Lissy, okay?"  
  
Ron nodded vigorously at this, very pleased that he had been deemed "cool enough" to call Hermione's cousin by her nickname.  
  
They finished eating their dinner within a matter of minutes, and Dumbledore pronounced that it was time to retire for the night.   
  
"To bed now - shoo! Off you go! Good-night!"  
  
As Hermione stood up, she realized suddenly that her hand was warm. She looked down at it. Harry's fingers were intertwined with hers. She smiled and looked up at Harry. He grinned back, and they walked towards the Gryffindor Common Room, as if they held hands all the time; like this was nothing out of the ordinary for them.   
  
Lissy noticed the two, though, and slid up to Hermione.  
  
"You go girl!" she whispered quietly in Hermione's ear, so that just her cousin could hear her.   
  
Lissy winked at Hermione and elbowed her gently. She then turned to Harry, who was now looking at her curiously. She grinned and raised and lowered her eyebrows suggestively. Lissy laughed at the embarrassed look that spread across his face. As she walked slower, falling behind the two, she let out a very loud, low-pitched wolf whistle, causing both of them to pick up their pace.  
  
She turned, laughing, and realized that she was practically alone in the corridor with Ron. He seemed to take note of this too, and quickly caught up with her, smiling at his uncanny luck.   
  
"Where did everyone go?" Lissy asked Ron.  
  
"Well . . . Ginny headed off to the Common Room with Neville and Seamus took off with Dean Thomas - I think they were arguing about Quidditch and soccer again."  
  
Lissy nodded, and was apparently satisfied with his answer, as she began walking in the direction that Harry and Hermione had been going. Ron quickened his pace so that they were walking at the same speed.   
  
  
They walked in comfortable silence until they got to the portrait of the Fat Lady, where Ron muttered the new password ("Flubberworms").  
  
The portrait swung open, revealing the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. Ron waited patiently as Lissy climbed through and then pulled himself into the Common Room after her.  
  
Lissy stood idly near the entrance for a second, looking around the Common Room, not quite knowing what to do. Ron gently took her by the arm, and led her over to where the others were sitting. He plopped down on one of the big, squishy, burgundy couches next to Dean, who was still arguing with Seamus about Quidditch and soccer. The couch he sat in was positioned in front of the roaring fire. Harry and Hermione were sharing a large burgundy armchair on the left side of the couch, and Ginny and Neville were in the one on Ron's right.   
  
He felt the couch shift slightly underneath him, and turned to his left. Lissy had just sat down next to him, sniggering at the amount of space between Harry and Hermione - or lack thereof. She turned to Ron and giggled. Ron thought that had to be the cutest giggle he'd ever heard.  
  
Man, you're in pretty deep, aren't you he thought to himself. Thinking about how cute a girl's giggle is. Ron shook his head to clear his thoughts. He came out of his mind to find Lissy's sapphire blue eyes looking directly into his. He tried to avert his gaze, but found it impossible to do so.  
  
"Y-you have gorgeous eyes," Ron stammered.  
  
"Thanks," Lissy said quietly. "I got them from my mom."  
  
"Well," Ron boldly continued, "If your mom looks anything like you, she must be gorgeous."  
  
He blushed, taken back at his own forwardness. What's come over me?   
  
Lissy took her hand and ran her fingers over Ron's defined jawline, causing shivers to run up and down his spine uncontrollably. He reached up to his face and took her hand with his, his gaze not averting from hers for a second.  
  
"Did anyone ever tell you that your freckles are adorable?" Lissy asked him quietly.  
  
"No. No one's ever told me that before."  
  
"Well, it's true - your freckles are adorable. And that flame-red hair of yours is sexy. Very sexy," she smirked at Ron suggestively.  
  
He grinned lopsidedly at her and moved closer, narrowing the already small gap between them. As he leaned in, his eyelids fluttered shut, and -  
  
"Ron! Wanna go practice some Quidditch with me and the twins b'fore yeh head in for the night?"   
  
Ron's eyes quickly opened and he jerked back, away from Lissy. Ron glared daggers at Harry. Harry didn't notice, though, as he was also trying to convince George and Fred to go practice Quidditch with him.  
  
"Thanks, Harry," Ron began sarcastically, "But I'm kinda busy now, so -"  
  
"No, it's okay, Ron," Lissy interrupted him. "You go ahead and practice with them. I have to go get settled into my room anyway. And Herm's gonna show me around the school quickly. She got special permission from Dumbledore, as long as we're back here before 10:30."   
  
"Well, all right then . . . Do you want to meet me back here at 10:30 then, before you go to bed?" Ron asked her hopefully.  
  
Lissy grinned, and responded, "Sure! That'd be great. I'll see you then!"  
  
She turned, grabbed Hermione by the arm, and pulled her out of the armchair. Lissy headed towards the Fifth Year Girls' dorms, Hermione in tow, and waved bye to Ron.  
  
"See you at 10:30!" she called, smiling and waving.  
  
After the two girls had disappeared, Ron turned to Harry, who had just finished successfully convincing Fred and George to go practice Quidditch with him and Ron for two hours, until 9:30. Harry grinned at Ron.  
  
"So, looks like you and Hermi's cousin are hitting it off pretty well," he told his best friend, with much amusement in his voice. "Whatever happened to poor Lavender?"  
  
"Dean can have her. I'm over her. Who cares about Lavender when I can have . . . Lissy?" He sighed blissfully.  
  
Fred and George burst out in laughter. Ron cringed. He had forgotten they were there. Ron glared at the twins as Fred pretend-swooned and George "gallantly" caught him when he fell.  
  
Harry chuckled, and turned to Ron, saying, "Give me a minute, okay? I'm gonna go grab my Firebolt from my trunk, and then I'll meet the three of you on the Quidditch Field."  
  
"Whatever," Ron muttered, grabbing his twin brothers by the arm and dragging them out of the entrance hole behind him.  
  
  
In the Sixth Year Girls' Dormitory, Hermione and Lissy were busy unpacking their gigantic trunks; making the room feel like home. Hermione set a picture of her parents on her nightstand next to one of her, Harry, and Ron. Seeing Ron's picture reminded her of something.  
  
"Hey, Lissy," she taunted, "How'da like Ronniekins?"  
  
She grinned evilly. Lissy turned from enchanting her alarm clock to stick her tongue out at Hermione.  
  
"What do you care," she teased right back, "When you've got cuddly-wuddly Harry around?"  
  
Hermione turned on her cousin and poked her quickly in the side.  
  
"Stop!" Lissy giggled.   
  
"I'm not ticklish anymore," she protested unconvincingly, " please - stop it 'Mione!"  
  
"Oooh - big mistake!" Hermione joked, lunging at Lissy again. "Never - ever - EVER call me by that name! You know I only used to call myself that because I couldn't pronounce Hermione! I was, like - two, or something!"  
  
"Un-huh - whatever . . . 'Mione!" Lissy dived as Hermione lunged again and laughed as her cousin did a belly flop on the rug.   
  
Hermione sprang up and finally tackled Lissy, dragging her down to the floor again. She was furiously tickling Lissy when there was a loud knock on the dormitory door. The two girls froze.  
  
"Ummm . . . come in?" Lissy turned to Hermione and grimaced, hoping fervently that the person on the other side wasn't Ron.  
  
The door swung open and hit the wall with a dull thud. Harry walked into the dorm, his smirk very evident.  
  
"I'm sorry - did I interrupt something? I could come back when you two are finished killing each other . . . " he trailed off, an amused look on his face.  
  
Hermione glared daggers at him and stood up, dusting herself off. She turned to Lissy, offered her a hand up, and pulled her cousin off the floor.  
  
"What is it that you needed, Harry?" Hermione asked him.  
  
"Oh, nothing much - I was just here to see if Lissy was planning on going down to the Common Room to meet Ron, or not . . . have you checked the time lately?"   
  
Harry gestured to the alarm clock on Lissy's nightstand. The two girls turned simultaneously to peer at the clock. The digits blinked a bright red -  
  
10:45  
  
Lissy covered her mouth with her hand.  
  
"Oh my gosh! Have we really been up here for over three hours? We completely forgot to go tour the school!" Lissy said to Harry in despair. "But we were watching the time carefully! Oh no! What will he think?"  
  
Lissy appeared to be on the verge of tears. Hermione found this awful, and Harry - being a tipical guy - thought the situation to be quite humorous, as was apparent with his sniggering. Hermione turned on Harry, furious at him for upsetting her cousin like this.  
  
"Harry, how could you?" she asked Harry, comforting Lissy in a hug. "She thinks Ron'll never speak to her again or something!" she whispered furiously to Harry.  
  
Lissy let out a little sob. Harry looked truly worried now. He hadn't meant for her to cry, after all - he was just supposed to check to see if they were coming or not.  
  
"I ummm . . . I mean . . . sorry, Lissy. I didn't mean to make you cry. See, it doesn't matter that you're late, because we just got back a few seconds ago - right before I came in here."   
  
Harry looked at Lissy with concern in his emerald eyes. Lissy pulled her head away from Hermione's shoulder and what Harry saw greatly surprised him - Lissy's face wasn't tear-streaked; in fact, there wasn't any visible evidence that she had been crying at all.   
  
Her eyes were laughing when she returned his gaze.  
  
"Gotcha," she said smugly with a smirk on her face and sauntered out of the room, leaving a bewildered Hermione and sorely confused Harry.  
  
Hermione turned to Harry, a look of disbelief on her pretty face. She raised her eyebrows at him. He shrugged and held out his hand, bowing gallantly.   
  
"Shall we?" he said in a mock formal voice, and she slipped his hand in hers, curtsying.   
  
"We shall," she responded in the same formal tone, giggling at the silliness of it all.  
  
Hermione let Harry lead her out of the dormitory and into the Common Room to the same squishy chair they had sat in earlier.  
  
Hermione glanced over at Lissy and Ron, who were now sitting in the chair previously occupied by Ginny and Neville. They were deep in conversation.  
  
"So, Lissy, how come you didn't start at Hogwarts until your fifth year?"  
  
"Well, you see, I grew up in America. I mean, I was born in England and everything, but I spent all of my life - from the time that I was three until just about four months ago - in Chicago, Illinois. I went to the American magic school for my first four years, and before that, my parents - they're a witch and a wizard - taught me basic stuff and some simple magic. I only got to see Hermione about once a year, though - if I was lucky."  
  
"You mean if she was lucky," Ron said matter-of-factly.   
  
Lissy giggled and then put a mock serious expression on her face.  
  
"Quite right ol' chap, if she was lucky, we got to see each other about once a year."  
  
She giggled again, and continued with her story.  
  
"Anyway, I went to the Independence University of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You know those Americans, always flaunting their freedom."  
  
Lissy looked thoughtful for a second.  
  
"I don't know why they called it a 'University.' It wasn't college, or anything. It wasn't that much different from Hogwarts - well, from what I've seen, so far. I mean, they made us wear these bright blue robes with red lining and golden trim - I like the black robes better; they're simpler - and the school was named 'Independence' because, well obviously, it's talking about the independence from 'horrible' England. Kinda stupid, if you ask me.  
  
"Anyway, we moved back to England - me, my little sister Claire, my mum, and my dad - in early June. We're now living really close to where Hermione lives. She's just a couple of streets away. So, when you come visit 'Mione this summer, you can come visit me, too!"  
  
Lissy grinned at Ron. Ron smiled back sweetly.  
  
"I think you mean, when I come visit you, I can see Hermione, too. Or, what was it that you called her - 'Mione, or something like that?"  
  
Lissy giggled, blushing, and responded, "Yeah, something like that."  
  
  
Hermione yawned, and Harry turned to face her, a small smirk on his handsome face. She snuggled closer to him.  
  
"Am I really that boring, Hermi?" he whispered softly in her ear.  
  
"No, not at all," she whispered back, very aware at how close his lips were to her ear. "Quite the opposite, in fact. I tend to find that I'm never bored when I'm around you."  
  
"Awww, you know how to get to a guy, don't you? So are you just sleepy then?"  
  
Hermione sighed contentedly and nodded. She rested her head down on Harry's shoulder.  
  
"Do you want me to carry you back to your dorm?" he quietly asked her, but his question was pointless - she was already asleep.   
  
He chuckled softly to himself and gathered the slumbering Hermione in his arms. He swiftly carried her up the staircase and into the Sixth Year Girls' Dormitory.   
  
He noted with relief that Hermione's four roommates - Parvati Patil, Lavender Brown, Faith Monroe, and Lissy - weren't in their dorm yet. It would be nice to tuck Hermione in bed without a lot of noise and ruthless teasing from her roomies.   
  
Harry carried her over to her bed and laid her down on top of her pastel green comforter. As he lifted her gently, he pulled the comforter down and then pulled it back up once he had her situated. He tugged it up to her chin. She turned slightly in her sleep, so that she was now facing Harry, a tiny smile on her mouth.  
  
Harry looked at her and sighed. She was so beautiful, so smart, so nice - so perfect, now that he thought about it. He shook his head.   
  
I don't deserve her, he thought to himself. Harry leaned down and kissed her forehead softly. Her eyelids fluttered open slightly.  
  
"Wha-" she began groggily.  
  
"Shhh - go to sleep. I'll see you in the morning."  
  
"Hmmm . . . " she sighed and fell asleep once more.  
  
Harry gently ran his fingers through her softly-curled cinnamon hair and smiled warmly at her. He stood and smothed out her bedspread.  
  
Harry then turned and walked towards the slightly opened door. He paused and looked back at the peacefully slumbering Hermione. Th moonlight was reflecting off her face, and to Harry, she had never looked more beautiful. He sighed, thinking about how lucky he was to have her.  
  
"Good night, Hermione," he called quietly as he shut the door softly behind him.  
  
  
  
A/N:So, how'd ya like it?? PLEASE, PLEASE review this!! (Otherwise, like I said, I won't post the next chapter until I have enough reviews!) And - just so you know, cuz I know otherwise I'll get emails about this - Krum is now 19, and apparently pretty stupid, 'cuz he's still a seventh year (he was sorted into Slytherin, just in case you didn't catch that as you were reading.) And - again, no flames - Please! Thanks for Reading - AND REVIEWING!!! -  
-Kel- ;o)  
  



	3. Hagrid's Request

  
A/N: Hey! Here's Ch. 3. PLEASE review this, cuz, like the other chapters, I won't post the next part until I get 25 reviews! So . . . please review. And, if you don't, then you're just plain MEAN!! :o) Anyway, read, and enjoy! * Note - thanks to Bianca for editing this for me! * :o)  
  
Disclaimer: Almost everything in this story belongs to the wonderfully talented Ms. Joanne Kathleen Rowling. Lissy, and a couple other characters belong to me.  
  
  
Harry Potter and the New Revelation  
Ch. 3  
Hagrid's Request  
  
The next morning, Harry awoke from a night of pleasant dreams. As he yawned and stretched groggily, Harry pulled back his covers and walked over to his trunk. Grabbing out a clean set of robes, he quickly tore off his pajamas and threw them on. Muttering to himself, (as he was still half-asleep) Harry went off to the bathroom.  
  
By the time Harry had emerged wide-awake from the bathroom with his contacts in, all of his roommates with the exception of Neville had awoken, and Seamus was busy trying to shake him awake. Neville, though, kept talking in his sleep, unconsciously refusing to get up.  
  
"No - no! Please, Gram . . . no, please don't take them away from me again. Don't make me leave - anything but that! NO -"  
  
Neville sat straight up in his bed quite suddenly, startling Seamus so much that he fell backwards on his backside with a dull thud.  
  
Harry hurried over to Neville.  
  
"Neville, are you alright?" Harry asked the scared-looking, round-faced teenager.  
  
"I - I . . . Yeah, I'm okay," Neville stammered, his clammy face and shaking hands contradicting completely with what he had just said.  
  
"You sure?" Harry asked him uncertainly.  
  
"Y - Yeah . . . I - I'm okay," Neville stuttered with a forced smile. "S - See - I wouldn't be smiling if I weren't okay, would I?"  
  
"No - I guess you wouldn't, would you?" Harry said doubtedly.   
  
From what he had heard Neville saying in his sleep, he had been having a nightmare about his parents. Poor Neville, Harry thought, shaking his head.   
  
His parents had thought to possess certain knowledge about the location of Voldemort after the Dark Lord had lost his powers. The Longbottoms had been tortured and their minds had been thoroughly searched by Death Eaters. They had survived the encounter, but the cost of it was their sanity.  
  
The Longbottoms' minds had been so destroyed that they had to be placed in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Neville's Gran took him to visit them during the holidays, yet they never recognized him.  
  
Harry cleared his head of thoughts of the Longbottoms and walked over to talk to Ron, who had just come back from the bathroom, looking too awake for as early in the morning as it was.  
  
"Hello, Harry! How're yeh doin' on this gorgeous morning? Well, we'd best get a move on; we don't want to be late for breakfast - after all, we can't keep the ladies waiting!" Ron said in an annoyingly perky voice.   
  
Seeing that Harry was indeed ready, Ron dragged him out of the dormitory and into the Common Room.   
  
Harry rolled his eyes, pried Ron's hands from his robe, and followed him over to the large couch. Harry could see two heads barely visible over the top - one with curly, brown hair; the other with straight, pale blond hair. As they walked around it, he could see that the heads belonged to none other than Hermione and Lissy, who were whispering secretively to each other and giggling.  
  
When Harry and Ron came into view, the girls' hushed conversation stopped abruptly.   
  
Un-huh, Harry thought, they were talking about either Ron or me . . . or the both of us.  
  
Harry tried unsuccessfully to contain a snigger when Ron bowed gallantly to Lissy and Hermione.  
  
"Good morning ladies," Ron said formally to Hermione and Lissy.  
  
Both of them fell into a fit of giggles.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes at Ron, who grinned happily.  
  
"They can't resist my charms, Harry ol' pal," Ron whispered to Harry.  
  
Ron straightened, extended his hand for Lissy, and helped her to her feet. They started off towards the portrait hole, already deeply immersed in conversation.  
  
Hermione, still sitting on the couch, looked expectantly at Harry. He caught on after a second, and offered Hermione his hand. Harry pulled her to her feet. He leaned over and gave her a little kiss on the cheek.  
  
Hermione blushed and giggled.  
  
They walked hand-in-hand all the way to the Great Hall.  
  
Harry pulled her chair out for her across the table from Lissy, and she sat down. He took the chair next to her, directly across from Ron.  
  
"Thanks, Harry."  
  
"You're quite welcome. Hermione, did I ever tell you how stunningly beautiful you are?"  
  
Hermione blushed a deep crimson and Ron choked on his bacon.  
  
"What's all this about, Harry? You feeling okay - do you have a fever, or something?" he asked, reaching over the table to jokingly feel Harry's forehead as if to check for a temperature.  
  
"He's burning up!" Ron said in mock horror, and then his voice turned sly. "Or, in Herm's case, I guess you could say, 'He's hot!' Isn't that right, Hermione?"  
  
Hermione's face flushed again and she glared daggers at Ron. He didn't notice; Ron was teasing Harry about complimenting Hermione. Lissy did notice, though; she pulled Ron closer to her and whispered to him.  
  
"Ron, don't bug them, okay?"  
  
"Sure, whatever," he replied, not really paying attention to what she had said; he was happy she wanted him to be closer to her.   
  
Harry shook his head. Ron had become incredibly agreeable on anything that concerned Lissy within the last day. It was actually quite funny, if you thought about it.  
  
Just then, dozens of owls came flying into the Great Hall, in search overhead for their owners. Hedwig swooped down to Harry and stuck out her leg so he could remove the attached note. He quickly opened the note and read it to himself. Then, he showed it to Hermione.  
  
"Here, it's not just for me - it's for all four of us. Hermi, could you pass it to Ron and Lissy when you're done, please?"  
  
She nodded as she finished reading the note. Hermione passed it on to Ron, who handed it to Lissy when he had finished reading it. Lissy picked up the small piece of parchment that had been folded in half. The front of it read:  
  
  
Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Lissy  
  
  
She unfolded it and read the inside:  
  
  
Dear Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Lissy,  
  
How are all of you? I know you have Care of Magical Creatures right after lunch this afternoon, and I have a special favor to ask of the four of you: Do you think you could come to class a bit early today, please? There's something I'd like to show the four of you. Send your reply with Hedwig soon.  
  
Hagrid  
  
  
Lissy folded the parchment back up and looked at her three friends.  
  
"So, are we gonna go?"  
  
Harry, who was already scribbling his reply on his napkin said, "Yup. I wonder what Hagrid's up to this time."   
  
He finished writing the note and tied it to Hedwig's leg, gave her his last sausage link, and sent her off to deliver the message to Hagrid.  
  
Harry ate the last bit of his toast and turned to Hermione.  
  
"Hermi, what classes do we have today?"  
  
She took the class schedule out of her pocked and examined it for a second.  
  
"Aww, we don't have Defense Against the Dark Arts today. That stinks. Well, first off, we have double Transfiguration with Ravenclaw, and then we have Herbology with Hufflepuff. Then, this afternoon, we've got Care of Magical Creatures with Slytherin, and after that we've got . . . well, I've got Arithmancy, and the two of you have Divination. Wait - Lissy, what did you sign up for?"  
  
Lissy checked her schedule.  
  
"I've got Divination."  
  
Hermione looked at her as if she were crazy for signing up for Divination and shook her head.   
  
Lissy caught her look, however, and explained, "Herm, at my old school, Divination was - by far - the best class, and almost everyone took it. I figured I'd keep going with it."  
  
"Well, you'll be in for a good laugh," Harry told Lissy dryly.   
  
"Professor Trelawney's a joke," Ron added.  
  
"Hmmm," Lissy said and frowned.  
  
  
Their morning classes passed quickly, and after a filling lunch of goulash, the four friends headed off towards Hagrid's hut, where lessons were held. All four had been taking guesses on what Hagrid had wanted to show them.   
  
When they reached the door, Harry knocked on it. They stood there for a few seconds, and Harry pounded on the door again. There was still no reply. He turned to Ron, wondering what they should do, but Ron just shrugged. Harry stepped up, opened the great door, and walked inside with the others right behind him.   
  
"Hagrid?" Hermione timidly asked.   
  
"Are you there, Hagrid?" Harry asked a bit louder.  
  
"OI - HAGRID!" Ron shouted.  
  
Hermione, who was standing right next to Ron, covered her ears and glared at him. He grinned at her, and cupped his hands over his mouth.  
  
"HAGRID - WHERE - ARE - YOU? ARE - YOU - THERE?" Ron bellowed.  
  
Hermione cringed, and when Ron was done, removed her hands from her ears and punched him swiftly in the gut.  
  
"Ooof -" Ron said as the wind was knocked out of him. "Her - my - oh - nee!" he said, pronouncing each syllable separately. "What in the heck didja do that for?" he asked incredulously.   
  
"Don't yell in my ear again, Ron. And, I know for a fact that it didn't hurt as much as you're letting on. I didn't hit you that hard. Fine - I'm sorry - now are you happy?"  
  
Her smirk turned to a frown as she looked around Hagrid's deserted hut.  
  
"Where is he?"  
  
"Where's who?" a deep voice boomed.   
  
All four turned around simultaneously.   
  
"Hagrid! Where've yeh been?" Harry asked.  
  
"I've . . . Well, yeh see . . . uh . . . I guess yeh can jus' come outside ter see fer yerselves." Hagrid stammered excitedly.  
  
Harry, Ron, and Hermione exchanged nervous looks. Lissy, who hadn't had any experience with Hagrid's surprises, just looked curious. They followed Hagrid outside and to the back of his hut.  
  
What they saw momentarily stopped them in their tracks.   
  
Sitting in a newly made pen were Fang - Hagrid's large boarhound - and another large, white boarhound. Half a dozen or so boarhound puppies surrounded the two.  
  
Hermione and Lissy took off towards them at a sprint. Hermione suddenly halted right in front of the pen, causing Lissy to crash into her outstretched arm. Hermione turned back around to Hagrid.  
  
"Is it okay if we go in there with them? Can we pet them and pick them up to hold them?" she asked Hagrid excitedly.  
  
"O' course yeh can - go righ' ahead!" Hagrid answered her cheerfully.  
  
Hermione and Lissy carefully climbed over the pen walls and leaned down, looking at the boarhounds.  
  
Harry turned to Hagrid.  
  
"How old are they?" he asked.  
  
"Oh, they're 'bout five weeks ol'. Aren't they adorable?"  
  
For once, Harry and Ron agreed with Hagrid that his pets were adorable.   
  
Hagrid had a habit of bringing home ferocious pets (such as the Norwegian Ridgeback dragon, Norbert, whom he had hatched from its egg and the vicious, giant three-headed dog he had christened Fluffy) and saying that they were adorable and harmless - which was usually completely untrue.   
  
Hagrid, Harry, and Ron walked over to the pen to join Lissy and Hermione. Hermione had one of the small puppies cradled in her arms and was cooing it softly. The one she was holding looked like its mother, with pearly white fur.  
  
"What's her name, Hagrid?" she asked.  
  
"I haven't given any of 'em names yet," Hagrid answered, stroking his chin through his enormous beard.  
  
Ron and Harry stepped into the pen and each picked up a puppy. Ron's immediately began licking his freckled nose.  
  
"Hey! Come on - stop that now! Hey! That tickles!" Harry said as a brown puppy licked his ear.  
  
Lissy giggled as her puppy sniffed her hand.  
  
"They're so cute, Hagrid! What're you gonna do with them all? There must be at least eight of them!"  
  
"Well," Hagrid began thoughtfully, "I was kinda thinkin' that . . . yeh don't suppose that the four of yeh . . . would yeh each like to keep one?"  
  
"Really?" Hermione squealed in excited disbelief, hugging the puppy closer to her.   
  
"Yeh mean it, Hagrid?" Harry asked excitedly.   
  
He had never owned a dog of any kind. Come to think of it, the only pet he'd ever had was Hedwig. The Dursley's had never allowed Harry to have a pet, and they sure weren't happy about his owning Hedwig. Harry'd always wanted a dog, though.  
  
"What's the mum's name?" Ron asked Hagrid.  
  
"She's Snowball. Isn't she a beauty?" Hagrid asked, his face glowing with pride. "Foun' 'er in Hogsmeade durin' the summer. Someone had left 'er."  
  
"How do you know she was deserted, and not a stray?" Hermione asked curiously.  
  
"Well, yeh see - she had a rabies tag, bu' she didn't have an ownership tag. When I saw that, I figered summat wasn't righ', so I brought her home. She and Fang kinda . . . got ter like each other. And then, 'bout five weeks ago, she had this litter of pups," Hagrid finished, beaming.  
  
"So, yeh can each pick out a pup. Yer pup can stay here, with its mum and dad until yeh leave at the end of the year, and then yeh can take it home with yeh - or, if yeh'd rather, yeh can leave it here with me for the holidays," he finished, glancing at Harry.  
  
"But, yeh should owl yer folks b'fore yeh get yer heart set on a pup. Yeh get a reply back saying yeh can have one; I'll let yeh pick out yer pup. Sound okay?"  
  
Everyone was smiling ear-to-ear grins, and they all stammered their thanks, each hugging one of the baby boarhounds.  
Reluctantly, they put the puppies down when Hagrid announced that if they didn't hurry up, all five of them would be late for Care of Magical Creatures.  
  
  
The Care of Magical Creatures class went surprisingly well, as there were no interruptions from the Slytherins today. Hagrid had just allowed the Gryffindors and Slytherins to go out to the pen and play with the boarhound puppies for the class period.  
  
It wasn't until after Hagrid had let them leave that Harry had noticed something.  
  
"Where was Malfoy? I just realized that the Slytherins were quiet today - it's because Malfoy wasn't there to start anything."  
  
"Yeah, and where was Krum?" Ron asked suspiciously.  
  
"Who knows - and who cares?" Hermione said. "Just be glad that they weren't there!"  
  
"Hey, Herm, who's Malfoy?" Lissy asked curiously.  
  
"Ugh - you don't want to know him!" Hermione responded. "He's a little jerk from Slytherin who bought his way onto their Quidditch Team. Snape always favors him 'cuz Snape's the head of the Slytherin House, and he loves to call me 'Mudblood.' "  
  
Hermione's eyes were flashing with anger by the time she finished with her last sentence.  
  
"In other words," Harry said as he put a comforting arm around Hermione, "Malfoy's a little half-wit, jerk, wanna-be Slytherin git with a funny first name. Got any other questions?" he finished with a smirk.  
  
"Yeah, what is his first name?" Lissy said, laughing.  
  
Hermione, Ron, and Harry looked at each other and burst out laughing.  
  
"Draco. His name is Draco Malfoy," Ron said through his laughter.   
  
"That is a funny name. What were his parents thinking?" Lissy giggled as they climbed up a set of stairs.   
  
"For your information, the name Draco means Dragon in Latin," a shrewd-sounding voice intoned.  
  
The Harry, Ron, and Hermione whipped around, Harry and Ron's hands going immediately to the wands in their pockets. They pulled them out and held their wands in front of them, pointing them at Draco Malfoy, who was leaning casually against the wall of the stairwell behind them.   
  
Viktor Krum was standing next to him, looking unsure of what to do. When Hermione glanced at him, he smiled at her.  
  
"Hello, Herm-own-ninny," he said to her, and she blushed.   
  
Hermione grabbed Harry's hand, and he squeezed it protectively. He looked down at her and smiled reassuringly.  
  
"Well, well - who is this?" Draco said as Lissy turned around. "Another Mudblood to spoil the school, Granger?"  
  
Harry struggled to restrain Ron and Hermione, but didn't have to worry about it for too long; Lissy stepped past them to face Malfoy.   
  
"For your information, Draco, I am a pureblood, thank you very much - not that being a pureblood makes you better; you want proof of that, then look in the mirror sometime, why don't you?"  
  
Malfoy sputtered and appeared as if he were trying hard to come up with a snide remark to throw back at Lissy, but his mind wasn't properly working. He retorted to glaring menacingly at her instead.  
  
"Go back to class, Pretty-Boy Draco," Lissy spat at him, turning away from Malfoy and pulling her friends with her.  
  
"Class - oh my gosh! I'm gonna be late for Arithmancy! And on the first day back, too!" Hermione shouted, now in a panic at the prospect of missing a few minutes of a class.   
  
"Go ahead, Hermi, we don't want you to be late. We've just got Divination now, so it doesn't matter. Meet up with you in the Common Room later, okay?" Harry yelled down the hall after Hermione as she sprinted to her class.  
  
Harry, Ron, and Lissy turned and climbed set of stairs after stairs, until they were finally at the top of the North Tower. They climbed up through the trapdoor and into the attic-like classroom. Ron hurried over and grabbed and an unoccupied armchair with empty ones on either side of him. Lissy and Harry took the armchairs on either side of him.  
  
"That's Trelawney," Ron whispered to Lissy as he turned and pointed discreetly at Professor Trelawney.   
  
Trelawney was looking even more like an insect than usual today. A gauze periwinkle shawl draped across the shoulders of her pastel violet robes and countless beads and necklaces draped over her neck and wrists. Her ever-present large eyeglasses made her eyes seem abnormally huge.  
  
"She predicts Harry's death every year, the old bat. Don't worry at all if she 'foresees' your demise, too, okay?"   
  
"Don't worry, Ron, I won't," she reassured him, patting his freckled arm.  
  
Harry took Ron and Lissy's conversation as a chance to look around the room. It appeared to not have changed a bit since last year. Numerous crystal balls, candles, teacups and saucers, and tarot cards were strewn around the room on large, bulky shelves. As usual, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil were huddled anxiously around Professor Trelawney, eagerly consulting a crystal ball.  
  
Harry rolled his eyes. What a load of rubbish, he thought.   
  
Seconds later, Professor Trelawney managed to tear herself away from Parvati and Lavender, who were now whispering excitedly about something they had "seen" in the crystal ball.  
  
"Greetings, my dears," she said in her misty voice. "I am ever glad that my Inner Eye was incorrect this time, as all of you had a safe holiday and are back here with me today."  
  
Ron groaned and Harry rolled his eyes in exasperation.  
  
"Today, we will be starting to learn how to read the messages of Tarot cards. In fact, I will have a demonstration now, so I'll need a student volunteer to have his - or her - reading. So, do I have any volunteers?"  
  
Harry and Ron immediately sank as low as possible into their armchairs. Lissy, seeing what they were doing, followed suit.   
  
Lavender and Parvati, however, were on the edge of their poufs with their hands raised in the air as far as possible without leaving their seats.  
  
"Oooh! - Oooh, Professor Trelawney! - I'll do it! - I'll volunteer!" Parvati and Lavender chorused, trying to catch their favorite professor's attention.  
  
Professor Trelawney, however, was eyeing the back of the chair that Harry had sunk deep into moments before.  
  
"Hmmm . . . today, I think our student volunteer will be . . . Harry Potter."  
  
"Man! Why does she always pick me?" Harry whispered indignantly to Ron and Lissy.  
  
Harry slunk slowly to the front of the room where Trelawney was sitting in the largest armchair of all, with a pack of Tarot cards sitting in front of her. He sat in the pouf across the table from her and sank as deep as possible, trying to disappear from the interested gazes of his classmates.  
  
"Come, gather round, my dears. Observe what the future has in store according to the Tarot cards," Professor Trelawney's misty voice announced, beckoning to the rest of the class.  
  
Lavender and Parvati hurried to get good seats close to Harry and Professor Trelawney. The rest of the class crowded in behind them.  
  
Professor Trelawney shuffled the Tarot cards. She began to lay them out on the table in front of her. With the third card, she gasped dramatically.  
  
"My dear," she said to Harry, "This is the card of Death . . ."  
  
Oh boy, thought Harry as Ron sniggered in the background, this is gonna be a long day . . .   
  
  
Later on, after dinner, Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Lissy climbed up through the hole in the wall behind the portrait of the Fat Lady. Immediately, they noticed that there was a crowd of Gryffindors bunched around a piece of parchment that had been posted up on the Common Room wall.   
  
Hermione grabbed Lissy's hand and pulled her over to the group of people that were clustered over by the fireplace. She worked her way through the crowd with Lissy until they finally managed to get right up next to the announcement.  
  
They read it quickly and emitted squeals of delight.  
  
"Oooh! I can't wait! It's gonna be a blast!" Hermione said excitedly.  
  
"D'ya think Ron'd go with me?" Lissy whispered eagerly to Hermione.  
  
"I'll bet he'll ask you as soon as he sees the announcement! I really hope Harry will ask me to go with him."   
  
She sighed.   
  
"This is going to be soo romantic, Lissy!" Hermione said. "In fact, let's bring them over here now and show them!"  
  
"Yeah!" Lissy said. "The sooner they know about it, the sooner they can ask us to be their dates!"  
  
They squealed excitedly and hugged for a few seconds. Then, they dusted themselves off and started determinedly across the Common Room.  
  
Hermione and Lissy hurried over to where they had left the two boys. Lissy grabbed Ron's hand, and Hermione grabbed Harry's.  
  
"Hey! Whatcha doin'?"  
  
"Yeah - what's this all about?"  
  
The two girls momentarily ignored Ron and Harry and tugged them over to the announcement.  
  
"Look," Hermione and Lissy commanded the boys in unison, shoving them right next to the announcement.  
  
Ron and Harry leaned in close to the sheet of parchment. They read it silently:  
  
*Important Announcement*  
  
To be held on Friday, September the Fifteenth:  
  
*Back-to-School Dance*  
Back to School, Muggle Style  
  
The Back-to-School Dance will take place in the Great Hall on Fri., Sept. 15th at 6:30 p.m.  
  
The dance will be open to all students Year Three and above. * Students younger than Third Year may attend the dance, but only if their dance partner is in his/her Third Year or above. *  
  
Classes will be let out one hour early, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, to provide students with adequate time to prepare themselves for the dance and banquet.  
  
The Banquet dinner will be served prior to the dance in the Great Hall at 5:30 p.m.  
  
* The Back-to-School Dance's theme is Back-to-School, Muggle-Style. Semi-formal Muggle clothes are to be worn. *  
  
There will be a shopping trip to Hogsmeade on Tuesday, September the fifth for those who don't own semi-formal or those who wish to purchase new semi-formal Muggle clothes, as a new shop carrying nothing but Muggle clothes (Muggles, Ltd.) was opened in July.  
  
Harry groaned inwardly and turned to face Ron. Ron's face expressed what Harry felt inside.  
  
"You guys are joking, right?" Ron asked Hermione and Lissy incredulously. "You don't seriously think that me and Harry are actually gonna go to this thing, do you?"  
  
Ron must be thinking about last year's Yule Ball, too, Harry thought, remembering the dance that had taken place on Christmas. Harry had gone to it with Parvati Patil after being turned down by Cho Chang - who was going to the dance with Cedric Diggory - and Ron had gone with Parvati's twin from Ravenclaw, Padma. Ron had asked Fleur Delacour to go with him, and she hadn't even answered him.  
  
Both Ron and Harry's experience had been miserable. Hermione had gone with Viktor Krum and, in Harry's opinion, had looked absolutely gorgeous. Harry had danced only to the first dance and Ron hadn't danced to any. Parvati and Padma had left them at the table after a bit, hooking up with some guys from Beauxbatons. Harry wasn't exactly eager to repeat the experience again, and from the look on Ron's face, he wasn't either.  
  
"What're you two getting at? Of course we're being quite serious. You two are going to go, aren't you?" Hermione said, frowning.  
  
Harry and Ron exchanged a meaningful look.  
  
"Ummm . . . we haven't decided yet," Ron said, smartly avoiding saying a flat-out "no."  
  
"Hmmm . . . We'll see about that," said Hermione, a determined look on her pretty face.  
  
Ron and Harry looked at each other again, worried.   
  



	4. Muggles, Ltd.

A/N:I finally finished it! I hope you like it! Hey - do me a favor and . . . PLEASE REVIEW! :o) Thanks! So . . . Enjoy! *Constructive Criticism is ALWAYS welcome - but flame's aren't. I spent a LOT of time on this. (Ask my sister - she'll tell you how much time I spend on the computer every day slaving away to produce a story good enough to please you people . . . oh. Sorry. Ahem.) Anyway, be a kewl person and read . . . and then review! I promise I'll love you forever if you review this! Anyway - I won't post Ch. 5 until I get 25 reviews, so . . . get reading and reviewing! * Thanks to all of you who reviewed the last 3 chapters of my story - I would list all of you, but there's too many! Also, thanks to Sara for the character ideas and Bianca for editing my story! *  
Love (to all those who review . . .)  
-Kel- :o) kelbacca@aol.com  
  
Disclaimer: The following characters belong to Sara: Kent Kringston and Geraldine Nesbitt. The following characters belong to me: Lissy (Elizabeth) Moore, Courtney Fowler, Faith Monroe, Ray Nelson, Kelli Osborne, Simonne Halcom, Sara Teichman, Christine Olsen, and Delilah Klink. The plot belongs to me. All other aspects of my story belong to the wonderfully talented Ms. Joanne Kathleen Rowling. (Pronounced Rolling for those of you who don't know.) :o)  
  
  
Harry Potter and the New Revelation  
Ch. 4  
Muggles, Ltd.  
  
  
Over the next few days, Harry and Ron constantly avoided the subject of the upcoming Back-to-School Dance. However, their less-than-happy attitude about the dance was starting to get on Hermione and Lissy's nerves. Whenever they started to talk about it, the boys would make some lame excuse and leave. Lissy and Hermione had been constantly dropping hints that they wanted Ron and Harry to ask them to be their dates, and the boys would change the subject to something like Quidditch every time it happened.   
  
Two days before the shopping trip to Hogsmeade, Harry felt someone tap his shoulder as he was leaving the Great Hall after dinner. He turned around to see who it was. He came face to face with a very nervous-looking Cho Chang.  
  
"Hi Cho," Harry said. "What's up?"  
  
"Oh, I um - er, well - I was just wondering - would you go to the Back-to-School Dance with me?" she asked Harry, nervously biting her lip as she waited for his response.  
  
Harry blinked. Wait a second - did Cho Chang just ask him to be her date for the dance? He couldn't believe it. Cho Chang just asked him to go to the dance with her!  
  
"Of course - I'd love to go to the dance with you!" Harry said, smiling. "I'll meet you outside the Great Hall at about - oh, say five-fifteen for dinner. How does that sound?"  
  
"Great!" Cho said, smiling back at him. "I'll see you then!"  
  
She turned and headed out of the Great Hall. Harry paused for a moment, and then left, too. He walked to the Common Room, not believing his luck. The prettiest girl in the Sixth Year had asked him to the first dance of the year! He shook his head in disbelief. When he got to the portrait of the Fat Lady, he said, "Flobberworms," and went through the entrance into Gryffindor Tower.   
  
As Harry quickly looked around the Common Room, he saw Ron, Hermione, and Lissy sitting by the roaring fire. Hermione, who was facing him, saw Harry first and waved him over with a big smile.  
  
Harry stopped cold in his tracks.   
  
Oh. No. Hermione! How could I forget about Hermione? Harry thought. Great - just great! What am I gonna tell her now?   
  
Harry sighed; running a hand through his permanently rumpled jet-black hair and went to face the music.  
  
"Hey, Harry!" Hermione said cheerfully. "What took ya so long?"  
  
"Nothing, really," Harry said with a weak smile.  
  
"Aww, c'mon Harry - tell us what's up?" Ron pestered his best friend.  
  
"Oooh - by the way," Lissy started excitedly, just remembering something, "Did you hear that Dean asked Lavender to go to the dance with him? And Parvati asked Seamus to be her date. Faith's going with her boyfriend, Ray Nelson. 'Mione, I just realized that we're the only girls in our Dorm without a date to the dance."  
  
Lissy and Hermione sighed in unison, then turned expectantly to Ron and Harry.  
  
The two boys just exchanged a nervous glance. Ron coughed and Harry blushed.  
  
Lissy rolled her eyes. Hermione, however, noticed Harry's crimson face, and narrowed her eyes in suspicion.  
  
"What's wrong, Harry? How come you're blushing?" Hermione asked him suspiciously.  
  
"Er- Choaskedmetogotothedancewithherandisaidyes."  
  
Ron, Hermione, and Lissy just stared at him.  
  
"Umm - run that by me again?" Lissy said.  
  
Harry took a deep breath and started again.  
  
"Cho asked me to go to the dance with her, and I said yes."  
  
Hermione gasped in fury, causing Harry to flinch.  
  
"How could you, Harry? I dropped hint after hint that I wanted you to ask me to be your date for the dance and what do you do? You go and tell that - that - Ooooh, you make me sooo mad Harry Potter!"  
  
Smack! Harry recoiled as Hermione smacked him as hard as she could across the face. He looked up to see her storming out of the Common Room in tears. Lissy jumped up and ran after her to their dormitory.  
  
Ron just looked at Harry in stunned disbelief.  
  
Harry kept rubbing the side of his face, which was now steadily throbbing where it had been hit.  
  
Ron blinked.  
  
"That's gonna leave a mark, Harry."  
  
Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Good night, Ron."  
  
Harry walked up to his dorm. Ron followed him after a second, shaking his head.  
  
  
The next afternoon in Double Potions, Snape was being as nasty as ever. The class was making Laminura Potions. A well-made Laminura Potion caused the drinker to reveal their deepest, darkest secrets just by having someone ask them to. The drinker keeps telling their secrets until told to stop.   
  
Snape had decided that today they were going to work with a partner of his choice. When he announced that, everyone groaned - Gryffindors and Slytherins alike.   
  
Snape looked around the room.  
  
"Hmmm . . . the first pair will be . . . Hermione Granger and Pansy Parkinson."  
  
Hermione looked over at Pansy, terrified. Pansy smirked evilly and waved. Hermione moved to get up, but Snape stopped her.  
  
"Granger - sit down! Ten points from Gryffindor! Don't get up and move until I'm finished partnering up the class!" he barked at Hermione.  
  
Hermione nodded and looked like she could cry.  
  
"All right - the next pair will be . . . Ron Weasley and Gregory Goyle."  
  
Ron groaned. Just my luck, he thought.  
  
"Vincent Crabbe and Harry Potter."  
  
Neville was looking quite terrified now. He was sure that Snape would partner him with Malfoy. He closed his eyes and crossed his fingers for luck as Snape announced the next pair.  
  
"Draco Malfoy and . . . Elizabeth Moore."  
  
Lissy made a face behind Snape's back, causing Hermione to giggle. Lucky for the both of them, Snape didn't hear them.  
  
Neville, to his great relief, ended up getting partnered with one of the nicer Slytherins (or as nice as a Slytherin could be . . .), Courtney Fowler.  
  
After Snape had finished partnering up the class, he barked at them to get going. Chair legs screeched on the stone floor. Cauldrons clanged as everyone hurried to go sit by their partner before Snape could get them in trouble.   
  
Lissy hurried to the seat next to Malfoy. She set her cauldron down on the desk with a ringing thud. She turned to look at him.  
  
"So, Draco, where were you the other day during Care of Magical Creatures?"  
  
Malfoy glared spitefully at Lissy as he powdered his newt tails.  
  
"First of all, who gave you the right to call me Draco? And second - I don't think where I was is any of your business."  
  
"Hmmm . . . well let's see - I gave myself the right to call you Draco - and second, Draco, I was just trying to make conversation. Since you obviously don't want to talk, then just make your potion, all right, Draco?"  
  
Lissy smirked at him and threw her garlic cloves into her cauldron. He just glared at her as he dumped the powdered newt tails in his cauldron.  
  
They finished making their Laminura Potions in - for the most part - silence, one of them would occasionally complain about the potion ingredients.  
  
"Ugh! These things smell awful! Worse than Hermione's dirty socks - and between you and me - that's saying something!" Lissy said to Malfoy, her nose wrinkled in disgust.  
  
"Oh. Yeah. Whatever," Malfoy said.   
  
It must have been some kind of a record for him - Malfoy hadn't made more than one or two snide remarks the whole Potions class.  
  
Then, with naught but five minutes left to go of class, Snape made an announcement.  
  
"All of you should have finished making your Laminura Potions by now. It's time to test them."  
  
The class began whispering nervously. They hadn't expected that Snape would actually make them test their potions. Snape continued with an evil glint in his cold, black eyes.  
  
"I will call you and your partner up to the front of the classroom. You will - one at a time - take a cupful of your Laminura Potion, and your partner will then command you to spill your deepest secrets."  
  
The corners of Snape's thin mouth curved up as horrified looks spread across the faces of the Gryffindors and Slytherins.  
  
"The first pair will be -"  
  
Snape never got to finish his sentence. The loudly ringing bell cut him off. The class clamored to get out of the room as an air of great relief passed over everyone.   
  
Snape looked distinctly disappointed that he hadn't gotten a chance to make his students spill their deepest secrets, and everyone, Gryffindors and Slytherins alike, avoided him as they left the room.  
  
"Lissy - wait a second."  
  
Lissy turned around to see Malfoy trying to catch up with her. She halted a right in front of the door.  
  
"Herm - go on ahead - I'll catch up with you guys in a few seconds!"  
  
Hermione, Harry, and Ron began to walk slowly away from the Potions classroom.  
  
She turned back to Malfoy.  
  
"You needed something, Draco?"  
  
"Umm - yeah. I just wanted to ask you something."  
  
"Shoot."  
  
"Okay - I uh . . . er - would you go to the dance with me? As my date?"  
  
Draco cringed and closed his eyes as if he thought she would slap him for asking. After a few seconds, he opened an eye. Lissy didn't look like she was going to smack him. She was watching something out in the hall. He followed her gaze. Lissy was watching Ron walk with Hermione and Harry.  
  
A mischievous little smirk played at the corners of her mouth, and she turned her gaze back to Draco.  
  
"Draco," she drawled, "I'd love to be your date for the dance!"  
  
Draco blushed as she slipped her arm through his and began walking out of the classroom with him, neither noticing Snape's spiteful glare that had been directed at the two of them.  
  
Lissy glared at Ron's back, now very far ahead of her and Draco. He didn't look back at her once.  
  
  
"Hey, Lissy - how come Malfoy keeps looking at you?" Hermione asked Lissy, leaning over Ron, who was sitting between them at the dinner table.  
  
Lissy just shrugged and pushed her string beans around on her plate.  
  
"I dunno. Maybe he's looking at you, 'Mione," she said with a mischievous glint in her sapphire eyes.  
  
Hermione shuddered.  
  
"God - I hope not. Ugh. Malfoy gives me the creeps."  
  
Lissy chuckled softly to herself.  
  
Ron, who had heard their conversation, put his arm around Lissy. Lissy looked away uncomfortably.   
  
"I'll betcha Malfoy wishes he was going to the dance with you, Lis."  
  
Lissy blushed and started to say something to Ron, but he cut her off.  
  
"Hey, Lis - sorry I took so long to do this - would you go to the dance with me?"  
  
He smiled sweetly at her, and she shook his arm off her shoulders. Lissy buried her face in her hands and mumbled something.  
  
"Umm - Lissy, I can't hear you. Can you please take your face out of your hands?" Ron asked her.  
  
Lissy lifted her head and looked at him with sadness in her eyes.  
  
"I thought you'd never ask me -"  
  
"Good! Then you'll be my date?"  
  
"No, no Ron - you don't get it. I thought you weren't going to ask me to go with you to the dance! Malfoy asked me to be his date for the dance right after Potions, and I told him yes!"  
  
Ron looked incredulously at Lissy. Then, he started to laugh. And kept laughing. Soon, he was howling.  
  
Lissy just looked at him with a confused look on her face.  
  
"Ron, what are you doing? You're making a scene!"  
  
He stopped laughing for a second and turned to Lissy.  
  
"That was a good one, Lissy. I mean - you, going to the dance with Draco Malfoy! That's hilarious!"  
  
"Ron, please don't laugh! I'm serious!"  
  
He looked into her eyes. Realization hit him.  
  
"You are serious, aren't you?"  
  
"I just told you that I was, didn't I?"  
  
Ron's eyes were flashing with anger.  
  
"How could you do that to me?"  
  
"I told you - it seemed like you were never gonna ask me, so when Draco asked me, I told him yes! It's not my fault you took so long to ask me!"  
  
Hermione sighed.  
  
"So now neither of us has a date, Ron."  
  
Ron looked across the room at Malfoy, then at Lissy, sitting next to him, and back at Hermione.  
  
"I'm surprised at you, Herm. You're wrong this time."  
  
He put his arm around Hermione's shoulders.  
  
"Hermione, will you be my date for the Back-to-School Dance?"  
  
Hermione cast a glance over at Harry, who was sitting across the table from Ron. A look of intense jealously had spread across his face. She smirked at him and turned back to Ron.  
  
"Ron," she drawled, "I'd love to be your date for the dance."  
  
Hmmm . . . what would push Harry over the edge? Hermione thought to herself. Ah-ha! I've got it!  
  
Hermione leaned over - looking at Harry the whole while - and planted a loud kiss on Ron's freckled cheek. Immediately, a crimson blush began to creep up his neck, spreading quickly to cover Ron's whole face.  
  
Harry was now glaring daggers at Hermione, with a look so spiteful that it rivaled Malfoy or Snape's.  
  
Hermione giggled and coyly took Ron's hand and held it on top of the table - making sure that Harry could see it clearly.  
  
  
Early the next morning - the day of the Hogsmeade shopping trip - around seven, Harry walked down the stairs leading from the Boys' Dormitories into the Common Room. He saw what he was looking for and walked over towards one of the tables. He sat down in the chair next to Ron.   
  
Ron looked over at Harry and raised his eyebrows as if asking what?  
  
Harry cleared his throat.  
  
"Ummm - Ron? Listen, I'm sorry that Lissy's going with Malfoy. I don't want this whole . . . dance thing to come between our friendship, so I'm gonna be one hundred percent honest with you.  
  
"First of all - you should know that I am jealous that you're going to the dance with Herm as your date. I don't know what I was thinking when I told Cho I would go with her. I really wanted to ask Herm but didn't know how. Anyway, it's too close to the dance to tell Cho that I've decided I'm not going to go with her. So - we're still friends, right? Truce?"  
  
Harry looked expectantly at Ron. Ron broke into a big grin and clapped Harry on the back.  
  
"Friends."  
  
Harry thought of something.  
  
"Oh - and no kissing her - okay?"  
  
Ron laughed.  
  
"You bet. Let's go get breakfast, 'kay?"  
  
  
After breakfast, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Lissy walked to Hogsmeade. When they reached Muggles, Ltd., Harry and Ron exchanged a mischievous glance and grinned.  
  
Ron cleared his throat.  
  
"Hey, me and Harry'll meet up with you guys later. We - er - have some stuff to get at Zonko's and Hogsmeade for Fred and George. They didn't want the teachers to see them with too much . . . stuff."  
  
Hermione and Lissy exchanged a look. Hermione shrugged.  
  
"All right. We'll meet you guys in Three Broomsticks for lunch at . . . noon, okay? Be on time - or face the wrath of Hermione," Lissy said in a very serious tone of voice.  
  
She giggled as Hermione shoved her.  
  
"You dork, Lissy. C'mon, let's go. I want to pick out my dress. See you guys later!" Hermione called as she shoved Lissy into Muggles, Ltd.  
  
The guys laughed and walked off towards Zonko's.  
  
  
Hermione and Lissy emerged triumphantly from Muggles, Ltd. an hour and a half later with numerous shopping bags in tow.  
  
They arrived at Three Broomsticks a couple minutes early. Hermione found a table and dumped her purchases in the booth, leaving Lissy momentarily to go get Butterbeers.   
  
Just as Madame Rosmerta was taking her order, Harry and Ron bustled in, weighed down by huge Zonko's and Honeydukes bags.   
  
"Hey, Herm," Harry said, struggling under the weight of the bags, "could you get me and Ron a Butterbeer?"  
  
"Sure. Madame Rosmerta - can you change that to four Butterbeers, please?"  
  
"Thanks, Herm!" Harry said as he staggered over to their booth, where Ron was already sitting next to Lissy.  
  
Ron and Lissy appeared to have made up, as Lissy was laughing at something Ron had said.  
  
Harry set his bags down and rushed over to help Hermione with the four Butterbeers she was attempting to carry. He grabbed two of them and set them down in front of Lissy and Ron.  
  
"Awww, look - Harry's trying to be a 'gentleman,' " Ron said sarcastically, taking a sip of his Butterbeer.  
  
"Shut-up, Ron," Harry said, elbowing in the side, causing some of Ron's Butterbeer to slosh over the side of the mug.  
  
"Hey!" Ron exclaimed as Butterbeer soaked the front of his robes.  
  
Harry slid into the booth next to Hermione, laughing.  
  
  
Five days later, Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Lissy were listening attentively to Professor Lupin. They had Defense Against the Dark Arts, and today's lesson was on Death Eaters.  
  
Professor Lupin was explaining that you could identify a Death Eater by the Dark Mark on their arm.   
  
"When touched by Lord Voldemort, the Dark Mark burns black, telling all Death Eaters that their Master is summoning them. Each Death Eater is to then Disapparate immediately and Apparate to Lord Voldemort's side."  
  
Lupin went on to tell the class about the horrible deeds that Death Eaters had done to all that opposed them.  
  
"Now, the Ministry doesn't want you to know this - they feel you are too young - but Dumbledore has a very high opinion of you. The Death Eaters are on the rise again. They are becoming very dangerous - possibly even more so than before - and you need to be very careful who you trust. And, on that happy note - class is dismissed!"  
  
Lupin sat down at his desk as students bustled out of the room, happy that classes were done for the day.  
  
"Hey, Hermi - you go ahead with Lissy and Ron - I'll catch up with you guys in the Common Room. Don't wait for me, 'kay?" Harry whispered in Hermione's ear before she could get up out of her chair.  
  
"All right. See ya in a bit, Harry," she said and left with Ron and Lissy.  
  
Harry waited until the rest of the students had left the classroom and then walked slowly up to Professor Lupin's desk.  
  
Lupin looked up from the stack of Second Years' papers that he had been grading and smiled at Harry.  
  
"Harry! Did you need to talk to me about something?"  
  
"Er - yes. I was wondering if I could have your advice on something."  
  
"Ask away, Harry."  
  
Harry explained the dance situation - how he had been meaning to ask Hermione, how Cho had asked him before he had a chance, and how he had forgotten about Hermione for a few minutes and told Cho yes.  
  
Lupin listened quietly to Harry, nodding in the right places. When he had finished, Harry looked expectantly at Lupin.  
  
"Well, Harry the dance is in five days, right?"  
  
Harry nodded.  
  
"You can't really tell Cho that you've decided not to go with her now, so my advice is to go ahead and go to the dance with Cho. But, you need to apologize to Hermione and explain why Cho ended up as your date instead of Hermione. You'd better hurry if you want some downtime before dinner - you've only got about a half an hour left."  
  
"Thanks, Professor," Harry said as he gathered up his books. "By the way, how is Sirius?"  
  
Lupin grinned.  
  
"He's doing great. He's with Arabella Figg, Mundungus Fletcher, and some other old friends at my house."  
  
"Bye, Professor!" Harry said as he grinned and left the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.  
  
  
Later that evening, after dinner, in the Common Room, Harry and Hermione were sitting at a table working on their History of Magic homework - a two-foot composition on Medieval Witchcraft for Professor Binns.  
  
Harry's quill paused as he looked at Hermione. They were working by the light of a candle and in the soft glow, she looked more beautiful than Harry had ever seen her. He sighed and put his quill down.  
  
"Hermione?" he said.  
  
She, too, put her quill down. Hermione looked at him.  
  
"Hermione, I need to talk to you."  
  
"Okay. I'll listen."  
  
All right. Er - it's about the dance . . ."  
  
Harry trailed off, as her face became harsher.  
  
"Umm . . . anyway, first of all, I'm sorry that I told Cho I would go to the dance with her. I was planning on asking you, but I didn't know how to."  
  
"Harry - look at me," Hermione commanded him.  
  
He locked his gaze with hers.  
  
"All you have to say is, 'Hermione, would you go to the dance with me?' and then I would say, 'Of course, Harry! I'd love to be your date for the dance!' It's not that hard, Harry."  
  
"Okay. I know that know. I'm sorry. Can you forgive me?" he asked Hermione hopefully.  
  
"Of course I can forgive you!" she said, pulling him into a hug.   
  
Harry returned her embrace and kissed her on the cheek.  
  
"Thanks, Hermi," he said, releasing her from his grasp. "I guess the reason I was so reluctant to ask you to the dace was that I kept thinking about last year's Yule Ball."  
  
"Oh," Hermione said. "What about the Yule Ball?"  
  
"Well - I, ummm . . . I was kinda really jealous of Krum when you showed up as his dance partner," Harry said, blushing furiously. "Speaking of Krum, whatever happened between the two of you? Weren't you supposed to visit him over the summer, or something?"  
  
Now it was Hermione's turn to blush a deep crimson.  
  
"Actually . . . I never ended up visiting him."  
  
Harry's brow wrinkled in confusion.  
  
"Oh. Why?"  
  
Hermione averted her eyes form Harry's gaze.  
  
"I . . . uh, I . . . um . . . er - I told him that I couldn't."  
  
"Why?" Harry asked in surprise.  
  
"Er - I told him that I didn't think it was right for me to let him think that I liked him . . . like that."  
  
"Oh. I see . . . I think," Harry said in confusion.  
  
Hermione sighed.  
  
"No - you don't. I told him it wasn't right for me to pretend that he held my heart - because he didn't and never did. My heart belonged to someone else."  
  
Hermione's face was now roughly the color of Ron's hair.  
  
"Okay. I get it now. But, do you mind me asking - who was . . . the other person?" Harry said.  
  
Hermione looked back at him and raised her perfect eyebrows.  
  
"Haven't you figured it out yet?"  
  
Harry shook his head "no." Hermione sighed and gathered up her quill, ink, parchment, and books.  
  
"Think about it, Harry. I'll see you in the morning."  
  
She turned towards the couch as she walked to the dormitory.  
  
"G'night Ron - Lissy."  
  
Hermione climbed up the stairs to the Girls' Dorms, leaving a slightly confused Harry at the Common Room table.  
  
  
Finally, it was Friday, September the 15th - the day of the Back-to-School Dance. For those students in their 3rd year and above, the day seemed to go on and on. After what seemed like forever, it was 3:00. Classes let out early and the halls immediately filled with students talking and laughing excitedly.  
  
Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Lissy practically ran out of Potions, narrowly avoiding Snape, who looked in the mood to take as many points from Gryffindor as possible.   
  
Hermione and Lissy giggled excitedly to each other, talking in hushed whispers about what they were going to be wearing to the dance.  
  
Harry and Ron followed a bit behind them. Ron was telling Harry in angry whispers how he was going to beat the crap out of Malfoy for asking Lissy to go to the dance with him. Harry just laughed.   
  
A bit later in the Fifth Year Girls' Dorm, Lissy, Hermione, Lavender, Parvati, and Faith Monroe were getting ready for the dance and talking about their dates.  
  
"Faith, you're sooo lucky!" Lavender chirped enviously.  
  
Faith looked at her, confused.  
  
"Why am I so lucky?"  
  
Lavender and Parvati exchanged a knowing look.  
  
"Well, duh! You're going to the dance with an older man! Ray's a year older than us!" Parvati exclaimed.  
  
"Oh," Faith giggled.  
  
Lissy and Hermione rolled their eyes exasperatedly.  
  
Parvati noticed their antics and immediately turned on Lissy.  
  
"So, Lissy - I heard that you're going with a Slytherin. Not just any Slytherin, though. You're going with Draco Malfoy," she said spitefully.   
  
"Yes, I am going with Draco - do you have a problem with that?" Lissy said.  
  
Parvati looked taken aback.   
  
"Sorry, Lissy," she said in a small voice.  
  
Lissy smiled warmly.  
  
"That's okay. So, you're going with Seamus, right?" Lissy asked Parvati as she pulled on her shirt.  
  
Parvati sighed.  
  
"Yeah. He asked me last week. Isn't he just so . . ." She giggled. "Cute?"  
  
Parvati, Lavender, and Faith broke into a fit of furious giggles. Hermione turned to Lissy and winked with a mischievous glint in her cinnamon-brown eyes.  
  
"Girls, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but - "  
  
They stopped giggling.  
  
" - It's already four; you only have an hour left to get ready!"  
  
Lavender, Parvati, and Faith first looked at Hermione. Then, panic-stricken, they turned to each other and started shrieking.  
  
"Oh - my - God!" Parvati screeched.  
  
"What're we gonna do?" screamed Lavender. "That's like, not nearly enough time for me to do my hair, paint my nails, apply my makeup . . ."  
  
Lavender trailed off as she started frantically searching for the magenta mail polish and lipstick that matched her dress.  
  
Faith just paled and sat down at her dressing table, immediately beginning to apply her makeup.  
  
Hermione and Lissy turned to each other and started howling with laughter.  
  
  
At five o'clock, there was a large crowd of guys waiting in the Common Room. There were also a handful of First and Second Year girls there - not wanting to miss seeing the older girls all dressed up.  
  
A couple more Second Year girls were crowded around the bottom of the staircase that led from the Common Room up into the Girls' Dormitories. Suddenly, they began squealing and whispering excitedly back and forth to each other.   
  
A small, brunette that Harry recognized as Natalie McDonald - Dennis Creevey's "friend" - ran out of sight up the Dorm stairs. A second later, she reappeared, looking very excited.  
  
"Hey - you guys!" she said a bit loudly.  
  
No one paid her the least bit of attention, with the exception of George Weasley, who was standing near her.   
  
"Oi - guys! Shut up for a sec! The little lady has an announcement to make!" he shouted.  
  
Immediately there was silence in the Common Room. Everyone's attention was on Natalie, who was now looking very embarrassed at having so many boys ready to hang on her every word.  
  
"The girls will be down in a few seconds!" she said loudly.  
  
There was a great deal of wolf whistling and clapping from the male portion of the crowd in the Gryffindor Common Room. Natalie stuck her head around the corner of the stairwell. She turned back to the crowd.  
  
"Here they come!"  
  
There was utter silence again. Necks craned to see who would be first.  
  
Finally, an elegant shoe came around the corner. Followed by a leg . . . and a torso . . . then a head.  
  
A bunch of guys catcalled as Fred went to escort Angelina Johnson. Next was Alicia Spinnet, whose arm was taken by George. Then came Katie Bell. Lee Jordan took her hand, and the six left for the Great Hall.  
  
Ron and Harry sat eagerly on the edge of their chairs waiting for Lissy and Hermione. Harry and Lissy would be meeting up with Cho and Draco outside the Great Hall.  
  
After Angelina, Alicia, and Katie were a couple other Seventh Years and then some Sixth Years - they were obviously going backwards by year.  
  
The first Fifth Year girl to enter the Common Room was Faith Monroe. Ray Nelson stood up blushing and went to escort her to dinner.  
  
Ron glanced at Faith as she passed him. She was wearing a pastel yellow shirt with 3/4 length sleeves and a light green, flowered knee-length skirt. Ron turned his attention back to the stairwell.  
  
There was all of a sudden a large amount of magenta at the end of the stairs as Lavender rushed over to Dean, immediately hanging on his arm. Her tight, mid-thigh length, tube magenta dress was so bright that it was nearly blinding. Dean kept blinking as he looked at her.   
  
Parvati, right behind Lavender, walked over to Seamus, giggling the whole way. Her face turned crimson when he took her hand. Seamus' mouth was wide open as he left the Common Room with Lavender, Dean, and Parvati. He was most likely in shock, as Parvati was wearing an itty-bitty turquoise tube-top and a very short matching skirt that showed off most of her long legs.  
  
Harry and Ron looked at each other and grinned - Lissy and Hermione should be up next. As they watched, the next girl walked into the Common Room. Their grins vanished. This girl didn't have blonde hair - but she didn't have curly cinnamon-brown hair, either. This girl had bright red Weasley hair.  
  
Ron and Harry looked at each other in confusion. Why was Ginny going next? Shouldn't it be Hermione or Lissy's turn?  
  
Neville got up and took Ginny's hand, causing both of them to turn crimson.  
  
The two boys turned back to the entrance to see Lissy walking over towards them.   
  
"Herm's next," Lissy told them.  
  
Ron checked Lissy out when she wasn't paying attention to him. She was wearing a pair of tight-fitting silver pants with an off the shoulder, belly-baring sapphire blue Baby-T that matched the color of her eyes perfectly. Ron was instantly of Malfoy.  
  
He came abruptly back to his senses, however, when Harry elbowed him roughly in the side.  
  
"Go escort her," Harry told Ron.  
  
Hermione had just come into the Common Room. Ron hurried over to her, offering her his elbow. She smiled sweetly at him and slipped her hand through his arm. As they walked back over to where Ron had left Harry and Lissy, he noticed that Harry wasn't the only guy who couldn't keep his eyes off Hermione.  
  
She was looking stunningly beautiful wearing a slinky, gold knee-length spaghetti-strap dress. Her hair was falling in soft waves over her shoulders and her neck was adorned only with a simple gold chain necklace. On her feet were strappy platform shoes that matched her dress perfectly.  
  
When Hermione and Ron reached their friends, Hermione tried to contain a giggle. Harry's jaw was wide open and his eyes were bushing out. He quickly snapped his mouth shut and blinked when he saw Hermione looking at him.   
  
"Hermione, you look . . . beautiful," Harry said breathlessly.  
  
"Thanks," Hermione said almost bashfully.  
  
Ron and Lissy rolled their eyes and grinned at each other.  
  
The four friends climbed out of the portrait hole.   
  
"Have fun, dears!" the Fat Lady called after them.  
  
They turned and waved to her.  
  
"We will!"  
  
  
They reached the entrance to the Great Hall right at 5:15 and Cho and Draco joined them. Cho was wearing a fire-red mini-dress and Draco was wearing black pants and a gray polo shirt with a wide green stripe across the chest.  
  
The six of them talked for a few minutes, waiting impatiently for the doors to the Great Hall to open. At 5:30 on the dot, the large doors slowly opened. Students rushed inside.  
  
Like at the Yule Ball, the House Tables were gone. In their place were dozens of smaller, round tables that each sat eight people.  
  
Lissy dashed over and claimed an empty table, pulling Draco along behind her. She plopped down in a chair and shoved Draco into the one on her left. Ron immediately pulled out the chair two to the right from Lissy's and waited patiently for Hermione to sit in it. He then took the chair between the two girls. Harry sat down next to Hermione. As Cho was sitting in the chair next to Harry, Neville and Ginny ran over.  
  
"Hermione, do you guys have two empty seats? We can't find two chairs anywhere!" Ginny said frantically.  
  
"Have a seat," Hermione said, beckoning to the two unoccupied chairs between Draco and Cho.  
  
"Thanks, Hermione!" Neville said.  
  
Ginny grabbed the chair next to Cho. Cho smiled at Ginny and then turned back to the conversation she was having with Harry about Quidditch.   
  
Neville nervously sat between Ginny and Draco. He tried to scoot his chair as inconspicuously as possible away form the Slytherin boy. Lissy noticed him and chuckled.  
  
"What're you laughing at?" Draco asked her.  
  
"Nothing," she giggled.  
  
"I'll take you word for it," he said, looking perplexed.  
  
When everyone was seated, Dumbledore stood and cleared his throat loudly. Silence fell over the hall.   
  
"For those of you who weren't of the age to attend last year's Yule Ball, you will obtain your dinner in a way different than you are used to. Watch - learn - and eat!" Dumbledore said.  
  
He picked up his menu and looked it over for a few seconds. He then said quite clearly to his plate, "Spaghetti!" A large heaping of spaghetti instantly appeared in front of him.  
  
The younger students caught on quickly and soon the Great Hall was echoing with the voices of students and staff telling their plates what they wanted to eat for dinner.  
  
When the last person had finished eating, Dumbledore said, "Stand!" Everyone stood. With a wave of his wand, the tables flew to the edges of the room. Instantly, the lights dimmed, and a band appeared on a stage that hadn't been there moments before.   
  
They started to play. The first song was a slow song. Couples moved out on the floor. Ron turned to Hermione.  
  
"Wanna dance?"  
  
"Let's go."  
  
As they walked out on the floor, Hermione saw a couple people she knew: Justin Finch-Fletchley and Geraldine Nesbitt; Kelli Osborne and Roger Davies; Mandy Brocklehurst and Terry Boot; Susan Bones and Ernie Macmillan; Simonne Halcom and Blaise Zabini.   
  
Hermione felt Ron's arms go around her waist and rest gently against her back. She turned back to look at him. Ron smiled at her as she slipped her arms around his neck, unintentionally pulling him closer to her.   
  
Hermione blinked at how close his face was to hers. Hmmm . . . she thought to herself. How come I never noticed before how cute Ron was? She blushed at the thought and grinned.  
  
A few feet away, Harry was holding Cho. He kept looking over her shoulder at Ron and Hermione. Why are they that close? Shouldn't there be more space between them? He thought to himself. Harry saw Hermione grin and he frowned. Why was she smiling? What did Ron say to her?   
  
After a minute or two, the song ended, and Harry and Cho went to sit down. Hermione and Ron followed them. After they had been sitting for a few seconds, a skinny Ravenclaw boy with light red hair and deep blue eyes walked over towards them.  
  
"Cho, would you dance with me?" he asked her.  
  
She turned to Harry.  
  
"Harry, do you mind if I go dance for a bit with Kent?"  
  
"That's fine - go ahead," Harry said.  
  
"Great. And, by the way - Hermione, Harry, and Ron - this is Kent Kringston. He's a Ravenclaw Sixth Year. I'll talk with you later, okay, Harry?"  
  
"Sure," he said.  
  
Harry turned to Ron and Hermione.  
  
"I do believe my date just abandoned me," he said with a sigh.  
  
Ron kept looking across the dance floor at Lissy and Draco, who were now dancing to a fast song. Lissy had all the right moves - "She went club-hopping quite often when she lived in America," Hermione said - but poor Draco looked like he didn't quite know what he was doing, or what to think of Lissy's moves.  
  
On an impulse, Ron stood.  
  
"Excuse me, Hermione - There's something that I need to do."  
  
"Oh. Okay," she said, slightly miffed, as he walked off.  
  
Hermione and Harry watched as Ron walked briskly over to where Lissy and Draco were dancing (okay, okay - where Lissy was dancing and Draco was trying). He tapped Lissy on her shoulder. She turned around.  
  
"Lissy, may I cut in?" Ron asked her.  
  
Lissy eyed Draco for a second.  
  
"You most certainly may," she said and started dancing with Ron instead of Draco.  
  
Draco looked depressed for all of about two seconds until Sara Teichman - a Sixth Year Slytherin - walked over and started dancing with him.  
  
Harry laughed and turned to Hermione.   
  
"It appears that we have both been abandoned by our dates, Hermi," he said.  
  
"So it does," Hermione said.  
  
"In that case - would you like to dance?" Harry asked her.  
  
"I would love to - and it took you long enough to ask!" she told him with a laugh.  
  
Harry took Hermione's hand and led her onto the dance floor. Just as they reached it, the music stopped. A second later, a slow song came on. Harry grinned at Hermione and slipped his arms around her waist, holding her close to him. Hermione giggled and put her arms around his neck, bringing his face right next to hers.  
  
They danced that way for a few minutes; lost in their own world - not noticing anything else around them. Not noticing when Collin Creevey came bounding by with his date, a Third Year Gryffindor by the name of Christine Olsen; not noticing when Viktor Krum came waltzing by with Delilah Klink, attempting to get Hermione's attention.  
  
Then, as the last chord of the song faded away, Harry and Hermione's faces drew even close together, as if by . . . magic. Hermione closed her eyes and a shiver went down her spine as she felt Harry's lips on hers. The searing kiss seemed to go on and on.   
  
When they finally came up for air, Harry opened his eyes to see Ron and Lissy's faces mashed together feet away. He chuckled and pointed it out to Hermione. She just laughed and pulled Harry to her again for another penetrating kiss. As Hermione's lips moved over his, Harry's only thought was it's 'bout time . . . .  
  
  
A/N:So - what did you think? Please tell me! How can I make the next chapter any better if you kind, nice, sweet readers don't review? :o( I need your comments and constructive criticism to improve as an author! So - please be a nice person and review this. :o) Again - my thanks to Bianca for editing my stories and Sara for the terrific character ideas (Kent Kringston and Geraldine Nesbitt, both of whom belong to her.) On another note - I'm going to start something else in addition to this story. (There's going to be a total of 14 chapters in this story.) I'm mainly a H/H person, but I don't know what the story's gonna be - that means I need YOUR help. How can I help this poor author, you may ask? Well, the poor author answers, you can help me by reviewing! Here's what you do: Read the story "Untitled So Far" by Kelbacca and follow the instructions. It's that simple! :o) Until the next Chapter -  
  
~Kel~ (kelbacca@aol.com)   
  



	5. A Time To Cry

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PATIENTLY WAITING FOR THIS!!!!!  
  
A/N: Hey again, all! Kelbacca's back! That's right - I've done it again! Here, my faithful readers, is the next installment of Harry Potter and the New Revelation: Ch. 5 - A Time to Cry. This is a kinda sad chapter - but fear not! Ch. 6 will have a more positive tone to it, and it should be up soon. Sorry for all of you who are a bit disappointed with this chapter, but eventually you'll realize that it's necessary to the overall plot. (Yes, I do know where I'm going with this story!) :) Anyway, enough of this boring author's note - go on and read the story already! :)  
  
Disclaimer: Most characters, settings, etc. belong to the wonderfully talented Ms. Joanne Kathleen Rowling. A few of the characters and the plot are mine. (Yay! I own something!)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Harry Potter and the New Revelation  
Ch. 5  
A Time to Cry  
  
"Hermione! Come on - let me in!" Lissy shouted.   
  
It was Saturday afternoon around one; about two weeks after the Back-to-School Dance, and Hermione had barricaded herself in her room, refusing to let anyone inside.  
  
"Go away! Leave me alone!" Hermione's voice screamed back through the heavy wood door.   
  
Lissy pounded on the door.  
  
"Hermione, you're being brat! Open up the door! What's wrong with you? What did the letter say? You came running up here before you told me what it said! Please let me in!" Lissy shouted in frustration.  
  
"What's wrong with Hermione?" a concerned voice behind her asked.  
  
Lissy spun around to see two boys standing there - one with ebony hair and sparkling emerald-green eyes and the other a lanky boy with flaming red hair and countless freckles.  
  
"Oh. Hi, Ron. Hey Harry - maybe you can talk some sense into 'Mione for me. An owl flew into the Common Room about fifteen minutes ago and dropped off a letter for her. As soon as she finished reading it, she rushed up here and locked the door. She won't let me in and she won't tell me anything!"  
  
Ron looked at Lissy, an amused smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.  
  
"Lissy - you're a witch, right?" he asked her.  
  
"Well, duh, Ron! I really don't think this is the time for -" Lissy said to him indignantly.  
  
"And," Ron continued, purposely ignoring her, "As a witch, you can do spells, charms . . . magic - right?"  
  
Lissy rolled her eyes at him. Harry saw what Ron was getting at and sniggered. Lissy turned to Harry and stuck her tongue out.  
  
"Ron, what's your point - I really don't have time for this! I need to talk to Hermione -"  
  
"Exactly!" Ron cut her off. "You need to get to Hermione, and how do you do that? You need to get past a locked door - am I right? Yup," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and, with a smug grin on his face began rocking back and forth from his heels to his toes. "I'm right."   
  
Ron glanced at Lissy and continued his little "speech." "Let's add it all up now. You're a witch. You can do magic. You need to get past a locked door. Hmmm . . . what could you do to get past that locked door?" Ron asked Lissy sarcastically.  
  
Before Lissy could answer him, Ron pulled out his wand, tapped it smartly on the doorknob, and said, "Alomohora."  
  
Harry laughed as Lissy breezed past Ron into the room, rushing over to Hermione, who was now laying facedown on her bed sobbing into her burgundy comforter. Lissy quickly sat down next to Hermione and patted her back soothingly.  
  
"Hey, Herm - what's wrong? Are you okay?" Lissy asked Hermione softly.  
  
Hermione sat up and looked at Lissy with red eyes and a tear-streaked face. She opened her mouth as if to answer her, and then suddenly she collapsed into Lissy's arms, sobbing convulsively.   
  
Ron and Harry were still standing in the doorway. Ron looked questioningly at Harry, who nodded. They walked slowly into the room and sat down on Hermione's bed next to her and Lissy. Hermione looked up at Harry.  
  
"Oh, Harry!" she said and fell into his arms, much to his surprise.  
  
"It'll be okay, Herm," he said as he awkwardly ran his fingers through her curly hair in an attempt to calm her down.  
  
Ron sighed and looked around the room, spotting a crumpled, tear-stained letter on Hermione's nightstand. He poked Lissy in the side and gestured to it.  
  
"Should we?" Ron mouthed to her.  
  
Lissy paused for a second, then reached across the bed and picked it up, leaving the letter crumpled in her fist crumpled. She turned to Hermione.  
  
"Hermione," Lissy began gently, "can you tell us what was in the letter?"  
  
Hermione let out a muffled little sob; her face was still buried in the front of Harry's robes.  
  
"Okay then . . . do you mind if I read the letter?" Lissy asked her softly.  
  
Hermione took her face out of Harry's robes and nodded. She took a deep breath and held out her hand to Lissy.  
  
"Here. I'll read it," she said with a brave face.  
  
Hermione took the letter from Lissy's outstretched hand and smoothed it out with trembling hands.  
  
With a quiver in her voice, she read the letter, stopping a few times to try and regain her composure when she cried:  
  
Dear Hermione,  
  
Honey, I don't know how to tell you this kindly, so I'll just write it like it is - Kiltie's dead. As you know, Kiltie has had cancer for the last year. The doctor's thought it wasn't too serious; they thought that they could get rid of it.   
  
She was scheduled for an operation today (I don't know when you'll get this, but today is the 21st of September), and she was all set to go. Then, this morning, I went to let Kiltie outside, just like I always do in the morning. I opened the door to the mudroom, and I saw poor Kiltie sprawled in the middle of the floor.   
  
I rushed to her immediately, but it was too late - Kiltie was dead. Your father and I took her to the animal hospital and they buried her in the little cemetery out back. I'm so sorry to have to tell you like this. Let me know if there's anything your father or I can do for you. Be brave - I know you will.  
  
All my love,  
  
Mum  
  
Hermione dropped the letter as she finished and started sobbing hysterically into Harry's robes. He held her close and murmured kind words of comfort into her curly cinnamon hair.  
  
Ron, however, turned in confusion to Lissy.  
  
"Kiltie?" He whispered her.  
  
Lissy nodded her head and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.  
  
"Hermione's dog. She was a Scottish Terrier. She would've been around . . . ten or eleven, I think - pretty old for a dog. Kiltie's had cancer for the last year, and the doctors thought it wasn't too serious," Lissy quietly told Ron.  
  
"Yeah - I picked up that last bit when Hermione read the letter to us," Ron said softly, glancing over at Hermione; she still was sobbing uncontrollably to Harry.  
  
Lissy followed his gaze and sighed, tugging gently on the sleeve of Ron's robe.  
  
"C'mon - let's leave them alone. I don't think that there's much either you or I can do for Hermione until she calms down a bit - which is where Harry comes in," Lissy whispered to Ron.  
  
Ron waved his hand for a second or two to get Harry's attention. Harry saw the motion and raised his head from Hermione's shoulder a bit and looked at him. Ron pointed towards the door and mouthed, Bye. Harry nodded briefly, then turned back to comforting Hermione.  
  
Ron and Lissy got up quietly off the bed and inched silently over to the door. They walked through the doorway, and Ron closed the door softly behind him with a dull thud.  
  
Once outside in the hallway, Lissy grabbed Ron's hand. Unnoticed to Lissy, he blushed a bit. She sighed.  
  
"Poor Hermione. She loved that dog sooo much!" Lissy said in a sad voice.  
  
"I wish I had a dog," Ron said. "I've never had a real pet - Scabbers turned out to be Pettigrew" - he spat the name as if it were venom - "and Pigwidgeon doesn't count; he's about as intelligent as Parvati and Lavender put together."  
  
Lissy, who had seen an overexcited Pigwidgeon before laughed heartily. They climbed down the stairs into the Common Room and walked over to the blazing fire. Ron plopped down onto the squishy couch and Lissy sat down next to him, folding her legs up Indian-style. Lissy looked at him and raised her eyebrows seriously, though the humor in her voice was obvious when she spoke.  
  
"First of all, Ron - Lavender and Parvati aren't bad. Second, you do have a real pet - and a dog, at that! Remember the boarhound pups that Hagrid has for us? Oh - by the way, what did your parents say? Can you keep one? My mum wrote me back saying that they'd love for me to bring home a puppy - I didn't tell her it was a boarhound. My little sister - her name's Genevieve, but we all call her Gwen - will be ecstatic to have a dog around the house. She just loves dogs - actually, she loves animals of all kinds! So - do you get to keep a boarhound?"  
  
Ron averted his gaze, his ears turning bright red with embarrassment.  
  
"I - er - well . . . my parents don't think that I should have a dog . . . right now," he stammered. "They - uh, think I should wait until I move out on my own . . ."  
  
Lissy looked at Ron with an unconvinced look on her face and raised one of her thin eyebrows.  
  
"Un-huh. C'mon, Ron, you can tell me what they really said - you should know that you can tell me anything."  
  
Ron looked at her again; this time his whole face was flushed bright red.  
  
"Well, er - my parents said that I can't have one of the dogs . . . because, well . . . we, um - we can't . . . afford one right now!" he finished hotly. "There - are you happy? You know my secret now - my family's poor! We can't even afford to keep a dog!"  
  
When Ron stood, his face was red and his eyes were flashing.  
  
"What dog?"  
  
Ron and Lissy's heads turned simultaneously towards the direction that the voice had been coming from.  
  
George and Fred Weasley walked over to the couch with Lee Jordan, Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, and Alicia Spinnet trailing behind.  
  
"Yes, do tell - what's this about a dog?" George said curiously.   
  
George sat in one of the great armchairs. Alicia giggled and sat in his lap, throwing her legs over the armrests. Lee and Katie took the other chair, leaving Fred and Angelina to squish in on the couch next to Ron and Lissy.  
  
"Spill the beans already, ickle Ronniekins - what dog are you talking about?" Fred questioned Ron.  
  
"We - I mean, me, Ron, Harry, and Hermione - went to visit Hagrid a while back, he showed us Fang, Snowball, and their new puppies. Then, he said we could each have one of the boarhound pups if our parents said we could!" Lissy said with a big grin.  
  
"Okay . . . back up a little bit - who is Snowball?" asked Katie curiously, leaning slightly forward in anticipation of Lissy's answer.  
  
"Well . . . Snowball is a female boarhound that Hagrid found in her in Hogsmeade during the summer. Some cruel person had abandoned her!"  
  
Alicia, Katie, and Angelina all gasped at the heartlessness of the situation.  
  
"How could anyone abandon a dog in Hogsmeade? That's just so . . . so . . . I don't know - horrendously terrible!" Who knows what could happen to it!" Angelina cried, her face twisted with anger at whoever had left poor Snowball to die in Hogsmeade.  
  
Fred sniggered at Angelina's show of emotion, then ducked quickly to avoid the palm of her hand.  
  
"Yeah," Lee added. "Snowball's really lucky that Hagrid found her. She couldn't ask for a better owner! Hagrid'll treat her like royalty!"  
  
"Okay - enough about Snowball - I want to hear some more about these cute little puppies you were mentioning!" Alicia said eagerly, shushing Lee.  
  
"Well," Ron began, "Fang and Snowball . . . er - got rather friendly with each other and . . . well - you know . . . anyway, Snowball had a litter of puppies about . . . oh, I think it was about two months ago. Anyway, Hagrid asked me, Lissy, Harry, and Hermione if we each wanted to take one home with us at the end of the school year."  
  
The three Seventh Year girls looked at Ron and Lissy with obvious envy.  
  
"You are soooo lucky!" Alicia squealed.  
  
"Yeah - getting to take home a baby boarhound with you at the end of the year - that's really cool!" Katie agreed.  
  
"Hey - do you think there's any way you could talk to Hagrid and see if we could take one home with us, too?" Angelina asked Ron and Lissy after a sudden inspiration, and Katie and Alicia nodded excitedly.  
  
"Yeah - that'd be great!"  
  
"Oh, please! I've always wanted a dog!"  
  
Ron looked at Lissy briefly, then turned back to the Seventh Year girls and sighed.  
  
"Well . . . I'll ask Hagrid. I mean - I don't know what he'll say, so don't get mad if he says no, okay?"  
  
Three heads with wide grins nodded enthusiastically.   
  
"Thanks, Ron!"  
  
"You're the best!"  
  
"Lissy's lucky to have a guy like you!" Alicia said, causing Lissy and Ron to blush.  
  
George turned her around in his lap and looked at her with a sad puppy-dog face, and as soon as she cracked a grin, he unmercifully began tickling her.  
  
"No - George, STOP! You know how ticklish I am -"  
  
"No duh, Alicia - why do you think I'm doing this?" George said, mocking her, as he tickled Alicia with newfound energy.  
  
Fred, who had been watching the exchange with an amused smirk, shook his head and turned to Lee.   
  
"I tell ya - those two are enough to give you a headache!" Fred said sarcastically.   
  
Lee snorted.  
  
"Yeah - like you and Angelina aren't?"  
  
"Hey!" Angelina said. "That was mean!"  
  
"Yeah, I kn-" Lee was abruptly cut off as he was hit in the face by one of the couch pillows thrown at him by Fred.  
  
All laughing now, the six friends started up a wild and raucous pillow fight in the otherwise empty Common Room. Nobody had noticed when Lissy and Ron had slipped away silently to take a . . . walk up on the Astronomy Deck.  
  
  
Later that afternoon, Ron and Lissy returned to the Gryffindor Common Room to find Hermione and Harry sitting on the couch in front of the great roaring fire, talking quietly. Ron sat down next to Harry; Lissy sat by Hermione. Lissy put a comforting arm around her cousin.  
  
"Are you feeling better now, Herm?" Lissy asked her with concern.  
  
Hermione gave her a weak smile and nodded.  
  
"Yeah, I think so." She looked at the clock and bit her lip, thinking about something.   
  
Hermione rose slowly from the couch. Harry took her hand and she turned around to face him.  
  
"Hey, where're you going?" he asked.  
  
Hermione smiled at him and answered, "Oh - I'm just going to the Library for a while - I have some homework that's due on Wednesday that I really should get done."  
  
She squeezed his hand and let it go, heading for her dorm.  
  
Lissy chuckled and Ron rolled his eyes.  
  
"I tell you," Ron said. "When will Herm lighten up about her homework. I mean, did you hear that? She has a project that's due on Wednesday, and she's working on it now!"  
  
Harry, still looking at the stairs to the dorms, though Hermione had already disappeared, just smiled.  
  
"That's why she's the head of our class, isn't it?" he asked.  
  
"I suppose . . ." Ron trailed off. "But, just because she's not going to have any fun doesn't mean that we can't - anybody up for a game of Exploding Snap?"  
  
Two eager faces greeted his question.  
  
  
In the Library, Hermione was reading over Friday's lesson in Arithmancy, when, for no apparent reason at all, she burst into sobs. She buried her face in her crossed arms, letting out racking sobs, the kind of sobs that hurt your ribs.  
  
She stopped mid-sob when she heard footsteps coming around the bookshelf next to her table. She had thought she was alone - the Madame Pince had left a few minutes ago for her break.  
  
As the person came into view, Hermione's worried face twisted into a scowl.  
  
"Malfoy," she said. It was not a question, simply a statement.  
  
"Granger," he stated back, walking slowly around the table.  
  
She refused to turn around and watch him when he walked behind her. When Malfoy had reached the part of the table opposite her, he stopped, facing her with his arms crossed over his forest green sweater.  
  
"Boy troubles, Granger?" he asked with a syrupy sweetness in his voice. "Is Potter treating you bad? I'm not surprised - what else would you expect from a - "  
  
"What do you know about anything, Malfoy?" she interrupted him, her face flushed with anger.  
  
"I know that you were bawling but mere seconds ago," he stated simply, a smirk on his pale, pointed face.  
  
"What would you care about it?" Hermione asked him.  
  
Malfoy just glared at her.  
  
"Un-huh - that's what I thought. And now, if you will, please leave, Malfoy - I've got things I need to do."  
  
"So what's wrong then, if it ain't Harry Potty that's treating you bad - you look like you lost your best friend or something"  
  
Hermione's eyes began to well up, and she quickly wiped away the lone tear that fell from the corner of her hazel eye.  
  
"How would you feel if your dog died, Draco?" she whispered painfully.  
  
He started in surprise; it was the first time she had ever called him by his first name (when she wasn't making fun of it.)  
  
"I uh - I've got to go now . . . have to go . . . um - Goyle - he owes me money! Yeah - I've got to go get it now. I'll um . . . see you later . . . uh - bye!"  
  
He said nervously and bolted out of the Library, nearly crashing into a returning Madame Pince.  
  
Hermione just sighed. A teardrop fell with a soft plop onto the blank parchment for her Arithmancy essay.  
  
  
  
  
That's all for now, folks!! :o) Anyways, please review this, and I promise that I'll email you a thank you for reviewing . . . if you leave your email in your review. :o) As always, comments are welcome . . . flames are not. :oP Oh, and a big thanks to all of you who have reviewed my previous stories - all of them! I love you guys. Without my reviewers, I probably wouldn't be posting this. Anyways, 'til next time -   
~Kel~ :o)  
  



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